THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN 
 THE SOUTH
 
 Baptist Missions in the South 
 
 A Century of the Saving Impact of a Great 
 
 Spiritual Body on Society in the Southern 
 
 States. 
 
 A Manual for Mission Study Classes and an In- 
 structive Story for the General Reader. 
 
 By 
 VICTOR I. MASTERS, D. D. 
 
 Editor of Publications for the Home Mission 
 
 Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
 
 and Author of Baptist Home Missions 
 
 and Home Mission Task. 
 
 Puplished under the auspices of the Baptist State Mis- 
 sion Boards of the South and of the Home Mission Board, 
 by the Publicity Department of the Home Mission Board 
 of the Southern Baptist Convention.
 
 Copyright, 1915, by 
 
 THE HOME MISSION BOARD OF THE 
 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION. 
 
 To'wnley & Company 
 Printers and Binders 
 Atlanta, Georgia
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Baptists have had no small part in the making 
 of America. They were patriots and participated 
 in the Revolution of 1775; they bore a valiant part 
 in that great struggle for liberty. To their everlast- 
 ing credit, the Baptists gave the Tories no comfort. 
 Their democratic principles as to church polity 
 helped to make them democratic in civil affairs. 
 
 Along with their doctrine of democracy they have 
 laid great stress on individualism, personal respon- 
 sibility. Sponsorship in religion is alien to their 
 thoughts. To his own Master each one must give 
 account. They have no mediator except Christ; di- 
 rect approach through him to God, the Father, is 
 the right of every individual. 
 
 Growing out of these ideas is the great doctrine 
 of civil and religious liberty, freedom from the tyr- 
 anny of kings and priests, the right to worship God 
 according to the dictates of one's own conscience. 
 
 Possibly the greatest contribution that Baptists 
 have made to America is their consistent champion- 
 ship and prevailing influence in securing religious 
 liberty for their great Republic. For it they have 
 paid fines, suffered the whip's lash, and been im- 
 mured in prison, and these principles they have not 
 claimed for themselves only, but for all the people. 
 
 They have contended, not for toleration, but for 
 full and unqualified freedom of conscience. Ban- 
 croft, the great historian, said that religious liberty, 
 
 550255
 
 6 PREFACE 
 
 full and free, was from the first a trophy of the 
 Baptists. 
 
 Other people, especially Presbyterians, were in 
 the fight for religious liberty, but it is a matter of 
 history that the chief crown for that victory should 
 be placed on the Baptist brow. This is clearly 
 proved by the two admirable chapters of this volume 
 on the struggle for religious liberty. 
 
 Baptists have made rather than written history 
 and their great part in the making of America has 
 not been given due consideration. We are coming 
 to realize the importance of setting down the achieve- 
 ments of our denomination. 
 
 Baptists have been a great missionary people. In 
 a roll call of the great missionary heroes, many 
 Baptist names would have to be recorded. Carey 
 and Judson are immortal in the foreign field. We 
 have men equally great who have given themselves 
 to the Home Mission task. The recital of our 
 triumphs in Home Mission endeavor is as interesting 
 as romance ; indeed much of it in the early days was 
 as romantic as the work beyond the seas. 
 
 The present volume of Dr. Masters is an attempt 
 to give a succinct and realistic treatment of South- 
 ern Baptist missions. It sets forth in admirable 
 fashion the great missionary trend and progress of 
 Southern Baptists. The reading of this book should 
 provoke hundreds of our people to a diligent study 
 of Southern Baptist progress and to a greater appre- 
 ciation of the significant part we have had in the 
 making of this great section of our common country. 
 
 B. D. GRAY.
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD. 
 
 There is no standard by which to measure the 
 future except the past. Past failures and successes 
 warn and instruct and the devotion and heroism of 
 those who have gone before are for our inspiration. 
 Understandingly to study the past is to gain wisdom 
 and enthusiasm to serve the future. 
 
 Belief in these principles has given shape to the 
 method of this book. It is an effort to present the 
 most significant events in the development as a sav- 
 ing force in the American Republic of a great spir- 
 itual body. In form and extent arranged to meet 
 the needs of Mission Study Classes, it seeks to tell 
 the story of the saving impact on society of the Bap- 
 tists in the South from the end of the Colonial Period 
 to the present time. The effort is also made to in- 
 form the general reader and to incite in those who 
 may need it a desire to study further the history of 
 Southern Baptists. 
 
 Many books have been consulted in the prepara- 
 tion of this work. No attempt will be made here to 
 catalogue the sources of information. Wherever it 
 has seemed desirable, the authority for statements is 
 given in the text. For the rest the Bibliography at 
 the close of the book must suffice. A startling fact 
 confronted the author at the outset, the fact that 
 there is not in existence an authoritative history of 
 Southern Bapists as a body. Histories of the denom- 
 ination in many of the States were available, though
 
 8 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 not in all. Of preeminent value is the History of 
 Southern Baptists East of the Mississippi, by Dr. B. 
 F. Biley, but even this work is limited in utility be- 
 cause it treats only one-half of the Southern Baptist 
 territory and because its able and gifted author was 
 restricted by his publisher to a single volume of 
 moderate size, whereas several large volumes would 
 be necessary to tell aright the story of the Baptists 
 of the South. Dr. Riley has also written able his- 
 tories of the Baptists in Alabama and in Texas. I 
 wish to record here my deep sense of indebtedness to 
 him as the chief among the sources of information 
 used in this volume. 
 
 The idea of treating historically in a Mission 
 Study book the Baptist missionary impact in the 
 South originated with the Corresponding Secreta- 
 ries of the State Boards, who in a meeting at the 
 Southern Baptist Convention in 1914 asked that the 
 author do this work, that the Home Board contribute 
 so much of his time as might be necessary to that 
 end, and that the Home Board publish the book 
 requests which the Board cheerfully granted. 
 
 It is a distinction which the author prizes highly 
 that he should be entrusted to render this service 
 for Baptists, not only in the name of the great Home 
 Mission agency to which his time belongs, but at the 
 instance of a group of Baptist leaders who are most 
 highly esteemed and honored, both for their own 
 worth and for the sake of the almost immeasurable 
 service they render to Baptists and to society. As- 
 sociated for many years in different ways with 
 members of this distinguished company, the author
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 9 
 
 has from his youth known them only to .admire and 
 love them. His first faltering steps as a neophyte 
 preacher were guided by that beloved nestor of 
 State Secretaries, Dr. T. M. Bailey, than whom 
 Southern Baptists perhaps have not produced a 
 minister more useful or faithful, and his second pas- 
 torate was a mission church under that great- 
 hearted layman, William Ellyson, Secretary of the 
 Virginia Board. To be permitted to render a ser- 
 vice in which this select group of leaders of our 
 Baptist body are directly interested is a rare and 
 precious privilege. 
 
 It is also a happy circumstance which permits the 
 setting forth in the same pages something of the 
 work both of the State and Home Mission agencies 
 of Southern Baptists. In the large the two are only 
 different angles of approach to the same great en- 
 terprise. In particular tasks they not seldom co- 
 operate. It is well to view as one whole their im- 
 pact upon life. 
 
 The author is under obligations to many friends 
 for reading and criticizing the manuscript of the 
 volume. The Committee of State Secretaries, Drs. 
 J. W. Gillon of Tennessee, Livingston Johnson of 
 North Carolina, and F. M. McConnell of Texas, 
 found time in the midst of exacting duties to read 
 the manuscript and contribute valuable suggestions. 
 A like helpful service was rendered by Dr. B. D. 
 Gray, Corresponding Secretary of the Home Mission 
 Board, and Dr. L. E. Barton, Chairman of the Pub- 
 licity Committee of the Board. In addition to our 
 debt to Dr. B. F. Riley for historical material, he
 
 10 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 has graciously aided by his criticisms on the work. 
 
 We have tried to make the material concrete and 
 interesting, but the promise is here made to the 
 student that there are places in the text which will 
 require of him some real study. That will not lessen 
 his estimate of its value, and the author is filled 
 with the hope that the rather novel material pre- 
 sented for Mission Study use will prove itself as 
 interesting as we are sure it will be instructive to 
 many, especially our young people. 
 
 It is often asserted that Southern Baptists will 
 not read their own history, that they have been too 
 busy making history to read it. It would be truer 
 to say that they have been most influentially busy 
 making history, but have shown so small a response 
 to those who have written of their past, that the 
 men among us of the requisite gifts have been dis- 
 couraged from writing. May not the author with 
 discretion enter here the plea that Southern Bap- 
 tists should give more attention to writing and 
 reading their history. Our religious body is a living 
 organism. On its human side it is the sum total 
 effect of all the experiences and forces which have 
 entered into its making. It is hardly possible to 
 believe that it may serve the present and face the 
 future with requisite wisdom and efficiency, except 
 as our people learn to plant their feet solidly on the 
 lessons of the past. How shall they be able to do 
 this without knowing what manner of past it was? 
 
 For Baptists to know of the noble history of their 
 religious body and the philosophy of its teachings, 
 would at the present time be one of the mightest
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 11 
 
 auxiliary forces which we could call into play to 
 save the weak from yielding to the pressure of the 
 winds of strange doctrine which are seeking to blow 
 the unwary from their secure moorings to the word 
 of God. For instance, when our people clearly un- 
 derstand that the greatest service Baptists or any 
 other Christian denomination, ever rendered to so- 
 ciety in America, was by setting their faces like flint 
 against good people, in order that they might obey 
 God, it will teach them by what principles they ought 
 to pass upon the value of the preachments of re- 
 ligious liberalists today. Not by compliance and 
 compromise, but by a loyalty to principle which sub- 
 jected them to imprisonment, railings, and contempt 
 did Baptists win religious liberty for Virginia and 
 for the whole nation. They won by seeking to please 
 God rather than men, and without consideration of 
 their own pleasure and worldly reputation. Win- 
 ning, they brought to the very people who had sneer- 
 ed at their narrowness and "bigotry," blessings a 
 hundred-fold more precious than they could have 
 brought by a cowardly, amiable conformity to the 
 wishes of many highly reputed religious people of 
 that day. With smiles and favor these prominent 
 religionists would have paid Baptists for yielding; 
 the reward which they gave them for their loyalty to 
 principle was bitterness and hate. 
 
 The history of this body of Christians abounds in 
 richness. It is scarcely conceivable that a Baptist, 
 once he has learned the lessons of our past, should 
 make the blunder of trying to trim the contents of 
 his faith down into conformity to the wishes of
 
 12 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 men, rather than hold them strictly in obedience to 
 the requirements of God's revealed will. 
 
 Throughout this book runs an underlying purpose 
 to try to make Baptists hungry to know their his- 
 tory, a purpose which is not less real for the fact 
 that it is necessarily subordinated to the exigency 
 of adapting the text to Mission Study require- 
 ments. Friends who have aided the author by crit- 
 icisms and suggestions have approved of the 
 method pursued, and some have expressed the be- 
 lief that these pages will lead to more reading of 
 our history. Dr. F. M. McConnell, Superintendent 
 of the Department of Evangelism in the South- 
 western Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort 
 Worth, Texas, says: "Your book shows every- 
 where outcroppings of a perfect mine of fascinating 
 history. If others are affected by it like I was, they 
 will wish to go down after the great wealth of Bap- 
 tist history in the South." So may it be. 
 
 To wealthy laymen who long to see the founda- 
 tions of Zion stand secure, and to other leaders of 
 our Baptist people, honored for their ability to dis- 
 cern and for their useful service to this people, may 
 not an appeal be made that they shall help open the 
 way for Baptists of the South to come out from 
 under the reflection which now rests upon them in 
 their having no history of their body? "We are a 
 great group, approaching 3,000,000 members, with 
 nearly as many Negro Baptists looking to the whites 
 to hold up for them the torch of knowledge. Our 
 past is rich in material for our instruction. Is not 
 the time ripe that our leaders and our men of wealth,
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 13 
 
 many of whom are well able to finance the publica- 
 tion of a historical work worthy of this great re- 
 ligious body, should open the way for such a work? 
 We have men who are equipped with the necessary 
 gifts and knowledge to write such a work and to 
 make its rich teachings available for the instruction 
 of us all. If we do not honor our spiritual sires and 
 the forces which have given Baptists their present 
 prestige in the South enough to set down and 
 clarify the lessons of the leadership of God through 
 all these years, we need not be surprised if other 
 people do not do it for us, nor that they get wrong 
 much of that which they do record. There are dan- 
 gers confronting Baptists in our own times which 
 would be greatly reduced if we might have the les- 
 sons of our past set before us as a lamp to light the 
 pathway of our ongoing. 
 November 1, 1915. V. I. M.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Early Days and Early Baptists 17 
 
 II. The Early Baptist Preacher 35 
 
 III. Baptists and Religious Liberty 53 
 
 IV. The Struggle for Religious Liberty 69 
 
 V. Missionary Beginnings 97 
 
 VI. The Conflict of Missions and Anti-Mis- 
 sions 111 
 
 VII. Organization of State Boards 131 
 
 VIII. Mission Work of Educational Agencies 147 
 
 IX. Development and Devastation 159 
 
 X. Partial Paralysis and Recuperation 175 
 
 XI. Organization Service and Success 187 
 
 XII. The Past and Future 207 
 
 Suggestions to Teachers 232 
 
 Bibliography 233 
 
 Reference Books on Various Chapters 235 
 
 Appendix A. 236
 
 My country 'tis of thee, 
 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 
 Of thee I sing, 
 
 Land where my fathers died I 
 
 Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
 
 From every mountain side, 
 
 Let freedom ring! 
 
 My native country thee, 
 
 Land of the noble free, 
 
 Thy name I love; 
 
 I love thy rocks and rills, 
 
 Thy woods and templed hills, 
 
 My heart with rapture thrills, 
 
 Like that above. 
 
 Let music swell the breeze, 
 And ring from all the trees, 
 Sweet freedom's song; 
 Let mortal tongues awake; 
 Let all that breathe partake; 
 Let rocks their silence break, 
 The sound prolong. 
 
 Our fathers' God! to thee, 
 
 Author of liberty, 
 
 To thee we sing; 
 
 Long may our land be bright, 
 
 With freedom's holy light, 
 
 Protect us by thy might, 
 
 Great God, our King! 
 
 Samuel F. Smith.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS. 
 
 1. Knowledge Needed of Early Social Conditions. 
 
 Baptists have had a large part in furnishing for the 
 South the moral and spiritual impulses through 
 which this section has gone to its present command- 
 ing and beneficent position in the nation. At the 
 same time the Baptist body has in large part been 
 a product of the environment in which it has grown 
 to such strength. In the beginning of a study of the 
 saving impact of the denomination on society in the 
 South, it is desirable to get into our minds, not only 
 the spirit and strength of the body in the early days, 
 but also a correct idea of the general life of the 
 people, which formed the environment in which Bap- 
 tists took hold and served. 
 
 2. One Hundred Years Ago. The First Baptist 
 Church of Charleston, South Carolina, was planted 
 in 1683 ; it was the first in the South. From then to 
 1815 is 132 years, yet we will use the year 1815 as 
 a base from which to get a view of early social 
 conditions in the South and to describe the Baptist 
 impact on Southern life in those pre-organization 
 days. In 1815 the Declaration of Independence had 
 been signed thirty-eight years and the Constitution 
 had been framed twenty-seven years. The Treaty 
 of Ghent, which terminated the 1812 "War with Great 
 Britain, had just been signed. During the period be-
 
 18 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 tween the Revolution and this War had been a peace 
 in which the Americans, unpracticed in national con- 
 sciousness, had drifted toward provincialism and 
 localism. The coming of the new peace in 1815 
 marked the beginning of the vigorous young man- 
 hood of America and an increase in national con- 
 sciousness. We may fittingly use 1815 as the point 
 from which to take our first survey of the South and 
 the Baptist impression upon its life. 
 
 3. Early Southern Population. The census of 
 1810 showed that there were 3,492,000 inhabitants in 
 the South, a small fraction less than one-half the total 
 population of America. Nearly all of the Southern 
 population was in the five older States on the At- 
 lantic Seaboard, and in Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee. The distribution was as follows: Virginia, 
 974,000; Maryland, 380,000; North Carolina, 555,000; 
 South Carolina, 415,000; Georgia, 252,000; Ken- 
 tucky, 506,000; Tennessee, 262,000. Louisiana, Mis- 
 sissippi, Missouri, and Arkansas together had only 
 137,000, and Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma 
 were not yet on the census books. The slave popula- 
 tion in the South in 1810 was 1,244,000, slightly more 
 than one-third of the whole. The whites numbered 
 2,148,000. In Virginia and South Carolina the 
 blacks nearly equalled the whites in number. 
 
 4. Race Stocks. Far the largest and most impor- 
 tant contribution to the Southern population in the 
 early days was Anglo-Saxon, and the predominance 
 of this stock, with its passion for liberty and its 
 genius for self-government and devotion to Amer- 
 ican tradition and ideals, remains undiminished until
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 19 
 
 today. In fact, in the light of the unassimilated and 
 strange peoples who are now flocking to other sec- 
 tions, the South 's Anglo-Saxon lineage and its de- 
 votion to civil and religious liberty, are becoming at 
 once its distinction and the basis of its obligation 
 to the rest of the country. In addition to the Anglo- 
 Saxon, the Germans, French, and Spanish helped to 
 build up the South of the early days and have con- 
 tributed valuable strains to our American stock. 
 
 5. A Day of Country Life. A hundred years ago 
 fewer than two percent of the people of the South 
 lived in towns of more than 10,000. Baltimore had 
 46,000 inhabitants, Charleston 27,000 and New Or- 
 leans 17,000. The people of the Old South lived in 
 the country, and the population per square mile, 
 including Negroes, did not average above seven. 
 Virginia was densest, with fourteen per square mile. 
 These countrymen made their living by tilling the 
 soil. The big planter was a picturesque personality, 
 but the consequent popularity he has enjoyed in lit- 
 erature has done an injustice to the great inconspic- 
 uous majority of Southern men, the hardy pioneers 
 who subdued the forests and caused the American 
 wilderness to blossom with beauty and gladness. 
 The men of 1815 who made the wealth of the South 
 and set up a stable government, were the sons of 
 sires who had carried their muskets in the Revolu- 
 tionary "War and had won Independence. These 
 men for the most part worked with their own 
 hands in the fields. Even the minority who had 
 slaves usually owned only a few and often worked 
 by the side of the slaves. Much as the public imagi-
 
 20 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 nation has been titillated by the romantic morsel of 
 the feudal lord with his hundreds of slaves and 
 thousands of acres, and as loath as we may feel to 
 break the pleasant spell, we shall not be able to lay 
 a true foundation on which to work out the religious 
 history of the South, without putting our pictur- 
 esque planter into the relatively inconsiderable 
 place which really belongs to him, of having been 
 something less than ten percent of the white popu- 
 lation of the South in the first half of the Nine- 
 teenth Century. 
 
 6. The Life of the People. The two characteristic 
 things in the lives of those farmers of the early part 
 of the last century were loneliness and independence. 
 The Southern Mountaineer of today is to some ex- 
 tent living like the average Southern farmer did in 
 1815 ; but with a difference. The early farmer was 
 more remote from his neighbor than the average 
 mountaineer of today, but had more land to culti- 
 vate. The farmer home of 1815 was sufficient to its 
 own needs. The grandfather of the writer in Pied- 
 mont South Carolina, Rev. Bryant Burriss, who was 
 a young man in 1815, was a Baptist preacher, a 
 large farmer, a tanner, a brick mason, a cabinet 
 maker, and a trial justice and community peace 
 maker. He was a slave owner and worked more 
 than any slave he had. The rural community life 
 of the South in the first half of the last century 
 was rich in such men. The social life of the people 
 was simple.. Quiltings, tournament riding, horse 
 racing, corn shuckings, and house raisings brought 
 the people together. These and the preaching ser-
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 21 
 
 vices conducted by pioneer preachers on the one 
 hand, and the muster day of the militia on 
 the other, made up the social repertory of 
 the day. The sins of the people were those of 
 a rough and primal life. At the muster days drunk- 
 ennesss obtained and free-for-all, "fist-and-skull" 
 fighting. In the revival meetings the religious emo- 
 tions showed themselves with similar force and fer- 
 vor. The preachers found it comparatively easy to 
 get great crowds of people to come to hear the 
 gospel, for they were hungry for contact with their 
 fellows; and they found them more responsive to 
 the truth, because they were not as universally 
 preoccupied with the spell of intense secular 
 life as they are today. 
 
 7. Home and Community. The isolation of the 
 communities scattered over the South tended to 
 cultivate mutual sympathy and good will among 
 different classes of people within each community. 
 Class consciousness did not grow, because members 
 of any special class had small opportunity for asso- 
 ciation with their own kind, while they had contact 
 with men of other classes. Community independ- 
 ence and individualism developed together. The day 
 of specialism was three-quarters of a century in 
 the future. The occupant of the pioneer home 
 had to form his own opinions and work out his own 
 problems. That home was usually built of logs 
 and contained from two to six rooms. In later 
 years saw mills were introduced and plank weath- 
 erboarded houses were built, or else the weather- 
 boarding was fastened on over the durable logs
 
 22 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 of the old building. Hundreds of these planked- 
 over log houses still stand in the South, attesting 
 the honesty of pioneer builders, mementos still of 
 pioneer days. In the home was the loom, the spin- 
 ning wheel, and the great open fireplace, where 
 the brave pioneer housewife superintended the cook- 
 ing, and over the door on pegs rested the trusty 
 rifle. The house was surrounded by cleared fields, 
 beyond which grew in unconquered grandeur and 
 mystery the native forest. The fields and forests 
 through agriculture, cattle raising, and hunting, sup- 
 plied all the needs of the family, except a few such 
 items as metal ware, shoes, and tools. Such a family 
 could live and not seldom did live for months cut 
 off from communication with the rest of the world. 
 8. Lack of Inter-Communication. One hundred 
 years ago in America the means of inter-communica- 
 tion were incomparably fewer than now. Perhaps it 
 is not understating it to say that the means of inter- 
 communication were not more than one per cent, 
 what they are today. The railway came nearly 
 twenty years later and amounted to little till forty 
 years later. The telegraph was unknown. The 
 steamboat was just beginning to attract attention 
 as a means of improving on flat boats in the rivers. 
 Travel beyond one's community was not for many. 
 There was a stage coach from Washington to New 
 Orleans by way of Columbia and Augusta, and the 
 trip required nearly a month. Much of the long 
 distance travel was by sea. The rivers were used 
 for transporting freight to and from the farmers 
 in their remote homes. The postage on a letter was
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 23 
 
 ten cents for eighty miles and twenty-five cents for 
 all distances above 400 miles. There were few news- 
 papers and the rate on them was relatively high. 
 There were few postoffices and bad roads were uni- 
 versal, where there were roads at all. Most of the 
 travel was done on horseback. Travel and inter- 
 communication in America one hundred years ago 
 were but little advanced over their condition in the 
 day when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to go 
 into the land of Canaan. 
 
 9. Unity of Spirit. But society was not so segre- 
 gated or impermeable as to prevent democratic 
 movements among the people. The Church of Eng- 
 land had learned this lesson two scores of years before 
 the date of our review, when the Baptists and other 
 Dissenters in Virginia had whipped her out of the 
 last ditch of government patronage, and secured re- 
 ligious liberty. Ferguson, the English commander, 
 had learned it when in reply to his high-handed 
 threats among the pioneers in Western North Caro- 
 lina and the Highland Counties of South Carolina, 
 these hardy men donned their powder horns and took 
 down their rifles from the peg rack over the door 
 and assembled 1,500 strong at King's Mountain, 
 where they whipped Ferguson and the British 
 thoroughly in one hour's fighting. In a blessed and 
 high sense the pioneer preachers proved it, in the 
 hearty response of the people to the call of the gos- 
 pel, which these prophets of the Bible and saddle- 
 bags carried to the remotest settlements. 
 
 10. The Baptists in the South. In 1812, Bene- 
 dict in his History of the Baptists says, there were
 
 24 
 
 100,506 Baptists in the South, as follows: Virginia, 
 35,665; North Carolina, 12,567; South Carolina, 14,- 
 735; Georgia, 11,847; Kentucky, 22,964; Tennessee, 
 11,325; Maryland, 697; Missouri, 192; Mississippi, 
 764 ; Louisiana, 130. In 1784 there were only 21,559 
 in the South and 15,000 of these were in Virginia, 
 where they had thriven on persecution and developed 
 a blessed overflow to start Kentucky in the paths of 
 righteousness and truth, as shown by Kentucky's 
 record above. It is difficult to get reliable statistics 
 of the other Christian bodies at that period, but 
 Gaillard Hunt in Life in America One Hundred 
 Years Ago, says that the Baptists were probably 
 the most populous sect in the whole country, and 
 nearly two-thirds of the Baptist numerical progress 
 in America was in the South. This progress seems 
 not to have been marked until the Establishment 
 persecution of Baptists in Virginia. After that Bap- 
 tists began to grow and have made remarkable prog- 
 ress ever since in the South. 
 
 11. "The Protracted Meeting." Throughout 
 their history, the protracted meeting has been among 
 Baptists in the South an institution of firstrate im- 
 portance. In fact, the early Baptist preacher was 
 the man and the protracted meeting the method 
 that God used to make the Baptists so great a mul- 
 titude. The annual protracted meeting was an estab- 
 lishment by which the time of other events was 
 reckoned, and is still reckoned so in many places. 
 Things happened three weeks before or a month after 
 the ' ' big meeting. ' ' The meetings were usually held in 
 August, during the period of comparative leisure,
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 25 
 
 after the crops were "laid by." They continued for 
 one or two weeks and consisted of a service each fore- 
 noon and one at "early candle light" in the evening. 
 In these meetings the pastor if we are to indicate 
 by that term the pioneer preacher in his once-a- 
 month or fewer regular visits to the church was 
 nearly always assisted by one or more visiting 
 preachers, who did the preaching. During the meeting 
 the pastor went to see the people, here for dinner and 
 yonder for the night, the visiting preachers fore- 
 gathering with him to enjoy the winsome and whole- 
 hearted hospitality of the people. It was the only 
 visit made for the whole year by the preacher to 
 most of the homes, but its infrequency was partly 
 balanced by the generous open-heartedness with 
 which the visitors were taken into the family circle. 
 Prom these meetings came the converts and church 
 members nearly all who came at all. After it was 
 over it was once-a-month preaching or less as the 
 dependence for spiritual instruction for another 
 twelve months, a period in which some of the weak 
 would fall and be excluded, until the next pro- 
 tracted meeting with its spiritual warmth should 
 bring them back in confession and repentance. For 
 discipline throve in the once-a-month programme, 
 though spiritual fervor tended to decline. It was 
 all simple in the extreme, but it was basic and 
 practically universal; so much so that the author 
 feels like apologizing for putting quotation marks 
 around expressions in this paragraph which are 
 much better known in common Baptist parlance 
 than many of the other phrases in this book.
 
 26 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 12. Songs of Zion. Congregational singing with- 
 out an instrument was prominent and potent in the 
 protracted meetings. The music was of old hymns, 
 such as "Come humble sinner in whose breast"; 
 "Amazing grace! how sweet the sound!" and 
 "Show pity, Lord; oh Lord forgive; Let a repent- 
 ing rebel live." They were "raised" by a leader, 
 often the preacher himself, and sung with spirit and 
 stately deliberation by the congregation. Following 
 the reading, or "lining out" of two lines of the 
 hymn by the preacher, a great volume of vocal 
 song would respond with a plaintive antiphonal 
 effect. In the music and words of these Zion songs 
 our ancestors interpreted the soul yearnings of com- 
 posers whose hymns told in rhythmic measure of 
 deep things, which God had taught them in trial and 
 suffering. No music of artists echoing through the 
 spaces of vaulted cathedrals or famed churches ever 
 subdued the soul before its Maker and taught it 
 of the majesty of the Unseen with more effect than 
 did these hymns of the pioneer churches. They 
 filled the simple building with a melody which angels 
 must have understood, a harmony which was the 
 voice of supplication and hope. It echoed far out 
 into the quiet cathedral spaces of the forest, and 
 mingled there with birdsong and babble of brook, 
 or made a sublime symphony with moaning winds 
 and the thunder-mutterings of summer clouds. With 
 those old hymns much of the popular music in the 
 churches today is not worthy to be compared. It 
 is said of Parker's great hymn, "Show pity, Lord," 
 that more converts trace their surrender to God to
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 27 
 
 its influence than to that of any other hymn in ex- 
 istence. Compare with it, " 'Tis the old time relig- 
 ion," with which some churches now caricature the 
 old time religion in a languid series of long-drawn- 
 out vocal phrases, repeated over and over again, with 
 the variation of only a single word, the name of the 
 person, from Moses down to Cousin John, for whom 
 the song says old time religion is good enough. To 
 make the comparison is to feel moved to pray that 
 our own day may have a spiritual apprehension, 
 which shall demand the preservation and use of the 
 great old hymns. Not a little of the music written 
 for use in churches today discredits the spiritual 
 perception of those who use it. Some of it, in a 
 rather pathetic effort after cheerfulness, has degene- 
 rated into a species of religious ragtime. To go 
 from its barren measures to the old hymns through 
 which pioneer America plaintively poured out its 
 soul to God in yearning and prayer and hope, is 
 like going from the dust and jostling throng of a 
 wall-confined city street to the outlook of some 
 stately and removed mountain top. In sacred song 
 many of us do less well than our fathers did. 
 
 13. The Great Revival. Great increment came 
 to the strength of the Baptists and Methodists es- 
 pecially, through a series of religious revivals, which 
 swept over the country between 1785 and 1802, 
 beginning in Virginia. This revival lasted in Vir- 
 'ginia and neighboring States for six years and ap- 
 peared next in New England. In 1801 it appeared 
 on the frontier in Kentucky and carried thousands 
 into the churches. About the same time there was
 
 28 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 a great religious awakening in North and South 
 Carolina. The population was rural. The people, 
 who flocked to these meetings often for a distance 
 of fifty miles or more, came from the quiet of lives 
 which read daily the open book of Nature, but were 
 little lightened or preoccupied by contact with their 
 fellows. Often tents were erected about the preach- 
 ing place in the forest and the people tabernacled 
 as long as the meetings continued. 
 
 14. A Portrayal by an Eye Witness. Dr. B. F. 
 Riley, in Baptists in Southern States, gives the 
 portrayal of an eye witness of one of these revivals 
 near Paris, Kentucky, at which twenty thousand 
 people were gathered, as follows: "Here were 
 collected all elements calculated to effect the 
 imagination. The spectacle presented at night was 
 one of the wildest grandeur. The glare of the 
 blazing camp fires falling on a dense assemblage 
 of heads simultaneously bowed in adoration and 
 reflected back from long ranges of tents upon every 
 side; hundreds of candles and lamps suspended 
 among the, trees, together with numerous torches 
 flashing to and fro, throwing an uncertain light 
 upon the tremulous foliage and giving an appearance 
 of dim and indefinite extent to the depth of the 
 forest; the solemn chanting of hymns swelling and 
 falling on the night wind; the impassioned exhorta- 
 tions; the earnest prayers, the sobs, the shrieks, or 
 shouts, bursting from persons under intense agitation 
 of mind; the sudden spasms, which seized upon 
 scores and unexpectedly dashed them to the ground, 
 all conspired to invest the scene with terrific in-
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 29 
 
 terest and to work up the feelings to the highest 
 pitch of interest." 
 
 15. Physical Excitement. Various observers in 
 States and sections far removed from each other 
 testify to the remarkable manifestations of physi- 
 cal and emotional excitement which characterized 
 them. Semple says of revivals in Virginia that 
 "sometimes the floor of the church would be cov- 
 ered with persons struck down under the convic- 
 tion of sins. Sometimes they lost the use of their 
 limbs. Screams, cries, groans, songs, shouts, and 
 hosannas, notes of grief and notes of joy, all heard 
 at the same time, made heavenly confusion, a sort 
 of indescribable concert." Sometimes persons trav- 
 eled more than one hundred miles to these meetings. 
 Some of the people under the pressure of the excite- 
 ment were taken with convulsions, called "the 
 jerks," others rolled on the ground, some even 
 barked like dogs. Capable observers of these re- 
 vivals, including the elder Richard Furman, deplored 
 the emotional excesses, but recognized the presence 
 and power of the Spirit of God in the meetings, 
 bringing many souls into the Kingdom. 
 
 16. Denominational Co-operation. In many of 
 these revivals the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and 
 the Baptists co-operated. In not a few instances, the 
 Presbyterians, who in these latter days eschew re- 
 ligious excitement more than most, were the leaders. 
 While there was co-operation because of a common 
 concern for saving the people, comity and tender 
 thoughtfulness for others did not obtain. At some 
 meetings the Presbyterians and Methodists took oc-
 
 30 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 casion to celebrate together the Lord's Supper dur- 
 ing the meeting, making it necessary for the Bap- 
 tists either to stultify their principles or to seem un- 
 brotherly. It is not probable that the Baptists were 
 any more careful than the others not to offend their 
 brethren of other denominations. 
 
 17. Religious Life. The religious life of the 
 early Baptist churches was simple and sincere. There 
 was much fervor in the preaching and in the re- 
 ligious manifestations of the people, but there was 
 also directness, earnestness, and sincerity. The emo- 
 tional overflow, which was characteristic of many, 
 was rather a by-product of the lonely pioneer envi- 
 ronment than an indication of superficiality. The 
 people read the Bible and the strong meat of diffi- 
 cult doctrine was as appetizing to them as was the 
 enthusiasm of the revival meeting. Religion was in- 
 dividualistic, because life was so. The great boon 
 sought was the assurance of personal acceptance 
 with God, and the mandates of the new life did 
 not seem to them to extend beyond individual recti- 
 tude and the immediate personal relationships. The 
 principle of missions lay dormant in the life of those 
 churches, but it seldom had any other manifesta- 
 tions than that of evangelism, in which the early 
 Southern Baptists have probably never been sur- 
 passed. 
 
 18. Doctrinal Conditions. One hundred years 
 ago the larger doctrinal differences of our Baptist 
 sires had been settled, and the permanent articles 
 of faith had been accepted substantially as held by 
 the body of Southern Baptists today. Two hundred
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 31 
 
 years ago American Baptists were General and Par- 
 ticular. The General Baptists were Arminian and 
 the Particular Baptists Calvinistic. Whitefield's 
 preaching in America helped the Particular Bap- 
 tists mightily to win the Arminian brethren. By 
 the middle of the eighteenth century the victory was 
 won. Then arose the distinctions Regular and Sepa- 
 rate Baptists. The Regular Baptists were those who 
 adopted the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. The 
 Separates sprang up under the leadership of Shubal 
 Stearns. They had more fervor than the Regular 
 Baptists and held that believers are guided by 
 the immediate teachings of the Holy Spirit, which 
 are in the nature of inspiration. They were mighty 
 as revivalists and did much to bring Baptist growth. 
 They opposed the Establishment more than the Regu- 
 lars did in Virginia. In 1787 the two branches united 
 in Virginia, which they afterwards did everywhere. 
 The Baptists of 1815 in the South, barring certain 
 minor sects, were everywhere Regular Baptists. 
 
 19. To Sum Up. In a population of seven to the 
 square mile, practically all of which was rural and 
 devoted to farming under pioneer conditions, the 
 Baptists in the South a hundred years ago had be- 
 come the largest religious body, with the Methodists 
 vying with them in efforts to adapt gospel preach- 
 ing to pioneer needs and the Presbyterians follow- 
 ing far behind in numbers, but possessing strength 
 and influence. The Baptists had a passion for liberty 
 and reverence for the open Bible. Usually their 
 preachers were not learned men, but they had a 
 great love for the souls of perishing people. Baptists
 
 32 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 were without any special secular advantage, and had 
 just come out of a century in which they had been 
 persecuted and despised by the proud ones of earth. 
 Their one strategic advantage in relation to their 
 civil environment was that they were a religious 
 democracy, and sought to convert and lead people 
 in the world's greatest civil democracy. How has 
 this religious body given account of its stewardship 
 in the South from that time to the present? The 
 rest of this book seeks to answer. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. For what special reason should Baptists know the early 
 social conditions of the South? 
 
 2. Give some significant facts of early history as they are 
 grouped about the year 1815. Why is 1815 a suitable point 
 of departure for our study? 
 
 3. Give the population of the South in 1810. Give it also by 
 States. 
 
 4. What race stocks settled the South? 
 
 5. What proportion of the population was rural? What was 
 the density of population? What was the character of the 
 great majority of the population? What of the big planter? 
 
 6. Give two characteristics of the lives of the pioneer 
 farmers. Give an illustration of the versatility which 
 made the pioneers independent. What were the social 
 institutions of the times? 
 
 7. What kept class consciousness from growing? Describe 
 a pioneer home. 
 
 8. What were the means of travel ? What effect had this on 
 society? Tell of mail facilities, newspapers, and roads. 
 
 9. Give evidences that public opinion found means of 
 forming. 
 
 10. Give the number of Baptists in the South and in various 
 States in 1812. How did their number compare with that 
 of other religious bodies?
 
 EARLY DAYS AND EARLY BAPTISTS 33 
 
 11. Of what importance was the protracted meetings among 
 early Baptists? Describe the meetings. 
 
 12. Describe the music of the early churches. Did they use 
 organs or other instruments? How did the hymns they 
 used compare with many now used? What is said of the 
 hymn "Show pity, Lord?" Tell of some barren types of 
 music now in use. 
 
 13. Tell of the great revival. 
 
 14. Give the description of a pioneer revival in Kentucky by 
 an eye-witness. 
 
 15. Describe the physical and emotional excitement of these 
 revivals. Give an estimate of their spiritual worth. 
 
 16. Tell of inter-denominational co-operation. 
 
 17. Describe the religious life of early Baptist churches. What 
 of the principle of missions? 
 
 18. Describe the doctrinal conditions. How did General and 
 Particular Baptists differ? Regular and Separate? 
 
 19. Give a resume of the chapter.
 
 Instead of blushing, realizing who and what our ancestors 
 were, and seeing how they are held responsible for what 
 they could not help, and for what was really no worse than 
 their enemies themselves practiced, we should champion their 
 fame, defend them from the aspersions of slandering bigots, 
 and seek to gain for them the admiring gratitude of coming 
 generations. Failing in this, we show ourselves unworthy to 
 be their descendants. I have little patience with our aristo- 
 crats who are ashamed of the plebeian fathers who made it 
 possible for them to be rich and courted; I have less for those. 
 Protestants who affect so much superiority to their Pilgrim 
 sires; and I have none at all for those Baptists who do not 
 highly esteem the character and sacrifices of the men who 
 secured them their high station in the world. Contemptible 
 children are they who do not magnify their parents; but I 
 trust the Baptists of the next hundred years may not be 
 classed with such. They should encourage the preparation 
 of biographies of their ancestors, should place before the 
 world the records of their lives, and should in this way aim 
 to develop in the churches something of their Christian 
 chivalry and heroic devotion to the truth of God. George C. 
 Lorimer, D.D.
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER. 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1 A Horseback Itinerant. He was a pioneer 
 preacher. The population was nearly all rural in a 
 comparatively new and untamed country. The infre- 
 quent city preacher constituted an exception, and 
 his usefulness beyond his own church depended upon 
 his understanding and adjusting himself to pioneer 
 needs and conditions. To a considerable degree these 
 pioneer conditions obtained in the South up to the 
 middle of the last century. In sections of the "West 
 and in some Highland sections of the Old South 
 territory they still exist. The early Baptist preacher 
 of the South was a man of saddle bags, the bridle 
 path, and the Bible. He was given to making gospel 
 itineraries to regions distant from his home, and 
 when he did not his round of appointments at 
 churches and preaching stations where preaching 
 was had either once a month or less often, kept 
 him much in the saddle. In fact, these men were 
 almost the only element of society who travelled 
 from one community to another in those days. They 
 became very influential in binding the settlements 
 together by the ties of sympathy and understanding. 
 
 2. The Wilderness Wooed Him. The wilderness 
 seemed to woo many of these preachers, for in the 
 wilderness dwelled unsaved men. No settlement was 
 too remote or too rough for them to visit. Some- 
 times the preacher went overland with the emi-
 
 86 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 grants to wilds not yet settled, with the purpose of 
 erecting a tabernacle for God along with the dwell- 
 ings of newly cut logs. The unexplored wilds to- 
 ward and setting sun seemed to beckon these men 
 onward, and they went. They cheerfully faced 
 dangers from Indians, swollen streams, wild animals, 
 and lawless human prowlers of the trackless, forests. 
 In the primitive settlements they wrought with their 
 own hands for a living during the week, like Paul, 
 that they might unpaid tell their fellow-pioneers of 
 Christ on Saturdays and Sundays. 
 
 3. His Bible. Largely the early Baptist preacher 
 was a man of one book. An influential but small 
 
 number of them enjoyed the advantages of scho- 
 lastic and theological training. Not a few, like the 
 elder Richard Furman, educated themselves mainly 
 by a self-selected course of reading. But for the 
 most part the men whose preaching a century ago 
 made the South so largely Baptistic, had small 
 scholastic training. They were students of the Bible 
 and in a way which has never been surpassed since 
 they knew how to preach experimental religion. 
 They were much given to discussing Scripture texts 
 among themselves and in the family circles where 
 they visited. This added a flavor of piquancy and 
 originality to their preaching, while at the same time 
 it was of immeasurable value in teaching the people 
 the word of God. 
 
 4. Was He Ignorant? Ignorant is not the word 
 to describe the Baptist pioneer preachers of the 
 South, even when they were unlearned men. Men 
 who could whip the shrewd and powerful Established
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 87 
 
 Church in Virginia, who could go into the wildest 
 backwoods communities, through the gospel bring 
 the most unpromising sinners to their right minds, 
 organize churches in an orderly New Testament 
 way, and leave the community transformed into a 
 new life and its face turned toward the light of 
 God such men may have been unpolished and not 
 genteel in manner, and they may not have used cul- 
 tivated speech, but they were not ignorant. Some- 
 times they blundered in the interpretation of a 
 Scripture passage, but they made remarkably few 
 blunders on what are called the cardinal doctrines 
 of grace. Dr. James M. Pendleton in the Jubilee 
 Volume of Kentucky Baptists tells of any early 
 preacher, who, preaching from the text, ' ' Save your- 
 selves from this untoward generation," pronounced 
 untoward ' ' untowered, " and proceeded to demon- 
 strate to his audience that sinners have no tower of 
 refuge and that if they would be saved they must 
 flee from a generation that has no tower. His con- 
 clusion was scriptural, but not from that text. Be- 
 fore we smile let us consider if some of the fanciful 
 interpretations of our day are not as unwar- 
 ranted. He often spoke in a rythmical sing-song 
 cadence, but the substance of his speech was salva- 
 tion by grace. The early preacher was usually un- 
 learned, but not ignorant. 
 
 5. His Passion for Souls. The pioneer preacher 
 had a passion for preaching, a love for men's souls. 
 Many of them left their homes and went to distant 
 places to preach, when they were sick and unable to 
 go. No sacrifice of their own interests seemed too
 
 38 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 great for them, if there was an appointment or a 
 special call to preach at the other end of the wilder- 
 ness journey. Dr. Riley says of these soldiers of 
 Christ in History of Baptists in Southern States: 
 "The early Baptist ministry of the South has never 
 been excelled in its unquenchable zeal in providing 
 the destitute with the gospel. Hardy and heroic, 
 these primitive preachers were the advance guard of 
 Southern civilization. * * * They braved all 
 dangers and endured every hardship in their de- 
 termination to preach. Rarer exhibitions of mission- 
 ary zeal were not illustrated even during the Apos- 
 t6lic Age." 
 
 6. His Support. One of the most remarkable 
 things in our early Baptist history is how God raised 
 up a ministry, who, while they made their living 
 with their own hands, converted the South to the 
 Baptist faith in a measure not equalled by any other 
 Christian body. Probably fewer than one Baptist 
 preacher in fifty received a living support from his 
 churches. Dr. Pendleton says that when, even as 
 late as 1836, he was called to the pastorate of a 
 church at a salary of $400, it was considered a won- 
 der of wonders in all that section of Kentucky. Vir- 
 ginia Baptists, who did so much for the common 
 weal, did not make an enviable record on pastoral 
 support. Benedict, writing in 1813, quotes a Vir- 
 ginia minister as follows: "The support of preach- 
 ers in Virginia is extremely precarious. By most 
 it is viewed as an alms. I doubt whether there is 
 one who is paid $300, and perhaps not ten get $150. 
 Some of the most popular and laborious preachers
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 39 
 
 in the State work for a whole year without receiv- 
 ing a cent." A part of the intimate fireside talk 
 of the early childhood home of the writer, was of 
 the beloved grandfather-preacher, who declared that 
 the entire receipts for a year from some of his 
 churches in Anderson and Pickens Counties, South 
 Carolina, would perhaps not more than pay for the 
 shoes his horse wore out in his trips to serve them. 
 The whole stipend from one church for a year 
 was a pair of wool socks, knit and presented by a 
 good woman. 
 
 7. Self-Support. David Benedict in his History 
 of the Baptist Denomination gives a portrayal of the 
 "temporal circumstances" of the Baptist preachers 
 in 1813. He says that 500 Baptist churches had 
 been organized by that time in territory which was 
 virgin wilderness at the close of the Revolution, and 
 that the preachers who did it were men for the most 
 part who immigrated to the new settlements, took up 
 lands at cheap rates, cleared them and put them in 
 cultivation, and thus secured the means of self- 
 support. At that time he estimated that about 
 twenty-five Baptist preachers in America were worth 
 $20,000 or more in property, about sixty, $10,000; 
 about four hundred and fifty, $5,000; two hundred 
 to three hundred, nothing at all, and the rest some 
 amount less than $5,000. A comparison with 
 present conditions suggests that the early ministers 
 were persons of more property than their latter- 
 day successors. If it be desirable for a preacher to 
 be poor, and this seems to be the general opinion, 
 yet the property of the early preachers was not to
 
 40 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 their discredit. Driven to self-support, yet under the 
 divine impulsion to preach, they seem to have used 
 the only large opportunity which has ever come 
 to Baptist preachers in this country to show that 
 they could beat the average layman at business and 
 yet give part of their time to looking after the 
 layman's soul. In the older settlements some of the 
 preachers taught school or practiced medicine as 
 well as farmed. 
 
 8. Causes of Non-Support. Both the preachers 
 and the churches were responsible for the former not 
 receiving a support for their work. On the preach- 
 er 's side, was a great dislike or even fear of instruct- 
 ing the people in their duty concerning this matter; 
 it was so easy for prejudiced and unjust persons to 
 attribute his instruction to worldly self-interest. Ac- 
 cepting the situation, the preachers gave what time 
 was necessary to self-support, and the lack of heart- 
 wringing need on their part made it easy 
 for the church member to keep his money in his 
 pocket. As long as he could hear a monthly sermon, 
 the early Baptist did not ordinarily think more 
 preaching and pastoral work necessary. As long as 
 the preacher had to get up only one new sermon a 
 month, which he might preach in half a dozen sepa- 
 rate communities, he could look after hogs and corn 
 and cattle for most of the week. 
 
 9. Reaction From the Establishment. Covetousness 
 is common to every day, and needs no elucidation 
 here in connection with the early non-support of Bap- 
 tist preachers. Those pioneer Baptists were prob- 
 ably not at heart more covetous than their descend-
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 41 
 
 ants today, and they were more hospitable than 
 their descendants. Aside from lack of training, for 
 which their preachers must take the chief blame, 
 there was a particular reason why those early for- 
 bears held the payment of preacher salaries in hearty 
 dislike. It had not been long since they and their 
 fathers had been compelled to pay a tax to keep 
 up the Episcopal Church and its pleasure-loving and 
 often contemptuous parsons. Fines and imprison- 
 ment had been their Baptist portion at the hands of 
 this State Church party. The Baptist preachers 
 themselves had led the fight to do away with this 
 unjust tax and also to do away with taxation to sup- 
 port any church. In these circumstances, it was to 
 be expected that the squeamish among the fathers 
 would look upon a stated salary for a pastor as a 
 child of the State Church imposition. They favored 
 free will gifts to the pastor instead, and then mostly 
 forgot to give them ! 
 
 10. Men Worth Knowing. Semple for Virginia 
 and Benedict for the whole country set down in 
 their books a century ago the stories of a number of 
 Baptist preachers, and other writers and oral tradi- 
 tion have helped to preserve for our instruction an 
 intimate view of the men who builded the founda- 
 tions of our present Baptist life and strength. These 
 stories have the spicy flavor of romance and 
 many times its value. It is unfortunate that the 
 record of these pioneer heroes is not more available, 
 particularly for the young people. Acquaintance 
 with them cannot but do much to inspire, to correct 
 false perspective, and to develop patience with and a
 
 42 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 comprehending understanding of the undeveloped 
 and backward churches of our own time. They 
 were leaders of men and did more than any other 
 class to establish society in the commonwealths which 
 make up the American nation. Let us take a look 
 at just a few of them. 
 
 11. Jesse Mercer. This distinguished early 
 Georgia . preacher, after whom Mercer University 
 was named, was a man of unusual parts, of whom Dr. 
 Basil Manly said : ' ' In his happy moments of preach- 
 ing he would arouse and enchain the attention of 
 reflecting men beyond any minister I have ever 
 heard." But Jesse Mercer was both a self-edu- 
 cated man and the pastor of far-separated once-a- 
 month country churches. His biographer tells that 
 when a rain-swollen stream interposed between him 
 and a preaching day at one of his churches, Mercer 
 would strip the saddle from his horse, drive the ani- 
 mal across the torrent, and with saddle and saddle 
 bags on his back search out for himself a crossing 
 place on some log or fallen tree. Many churches 
 were dependent on his pastoral care. He saw clearly 
 but could not remedy the weakness of the once-a- 
 month system, and declared that the churches could 
 never be brought to matured strength under such 
 a dissipated pastoral service. Would he not be aston- 
 ished if he knew how little the mass of the churches 
 have advanced beyond this inadequate practice at 
 the end of another century? 
 
 12. Shubal Stearns and Elnathan. Elnathan 
 Davis was a young man who was a mocker. Elna- 
 than heard that the venerable Shubal Stearns would
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 43 
 
 baptize one John Stewart at Sandy Creek Church 
 in North Carolina on certain day, late in the eigh- 
 teenth century. Now this Steward was a very large 
 man and Stearns was small. Elnathan opined there 
 would be much mocking diversion for him and his 
 cronies, if not a drowning. Therefore, with a dozen 
 others of his kind, he came to laugh when Stearns 
 came to preach. Elnathan and his boon companions 
 stood off on the edge of the throng, awaiting the 
 baptism. Mr. Stearns had no sooner come among 
 the crowd than Elnathan observed that some of the 
 people began to tremble, as if in a fit of the ague. 
 Irreverent Elnathan began to feel of and examine 
 them, to see if they were shamming. Then one man 
 leaned on Elnathan 's profane shoulder and wept bit- 
 terly. Perceiving that this penitent had wet with 
 tears his new white coat, Elnathan pushed him off 
 and ran to his comrades, who were sitting on a log. 
 "Well, Elnathan," said one, "what do you think of 
 
 these people ? ' ' Said Elnathan : ' ' There is a 
 
 trembling and crying spirit among them, but whether 
 it be the spirit of God or the devil, I don't know; 
 if it be the devil, the devil go with them, for I 
 will never more venture myself among them." He 
 stood awhile in that resolution, but the enchantment 
 of Stearns' voice and eye drew him to the crowd 
 once more. He had not been long there before the 
 trembling seized him also. He attempted to with- 
 draw, but his strength failing and his understand- 
 ing being confounded, with many others he sank to 
 the ground. When Elnathan came to himself he 
 found nothing in him but dread and anxiety, border-
 
 44 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 ing on horror. He continued this way for some days 
 and then found relief by faith in Christ. Immedi- 
 ately he began to preach, raw as he was. He moved 
 to South Carolina and was long an honored pastor 
 in the Saluda Association. 
 
 13. Samuel Harriss. About the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, at a small house by the side of 
 the forest-embowered road in Pittsylvania County, 
 Virginia, two unassuming Baptist preachers, Joseph 
 and William Murphy, were preaching the gospel of 
 salvation to the people who had gathered from their 
 pioneer farms. Along the road journeyed horse- 
 back and alone a man of thirty years, resplendent in 
 uniform and sword. This man was sheriff of the 
 county, warden of the Episcopal church, justice of 
 the peace, and county burgess. He was also colonel 
 of militia, captain of Fort Mayo, and commissary 
 for fort and army. But Samuel Harriss was full of 
 a discontent he himself did not understand. Pressed 
 by his gloom and drawn by the appealing echoes of 
 sacred song from the house where the Baptists held 
 their simple worship, Harriss slipped quietly into the 
 house and modestly took a back seat where his mili- 
 tary dress would not attract attention. But the Spirit 
 of God found out the popular young officer and 
 Episcopal church warden that day. His convictions 
 became so deep, as he listened, that he placed his 
 sword aside and went to the front to seek Christ. 
 When the congregation rose from prayer, Col. Har- 
 riss was observed still on his knees. Some who went 
 to his relief found him senseless. When he came 
 to himself he smiled, and in an ecstasy of joy, ex-
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 45 
 
 claimed, "Glory, glory, glory!" He was later bap- 
 tized by Rev. Daniel Marshall. Thus began the 
 career of a Virginia Baptist preacher than whom 
 perhaps no character in American religious history 
 was ever more winsome and inspiring. In him was 
 the love of a John, the modest helpfulness of a Bar- 
 nabas, and the fearlesness of a Paul confronting his 
 enemies. He was called the Baptist Boagernes of 
 Virginia. He became almost a constant itinerant as 
 a preacher. He preached to his former political as- 
 sociates and to the court, which, now that he was a 
 Baptist preacher, had its former favored officer 
 arrested and persecuted. He was as popular among 
 his brethren as he had been among their enemies. 
 Before his death Virginia Baptists came to call him 
 the Apostle of Virginia and actually ordained him 
 as such. 
 
 14. Richard Furman. About 1815, Richard Fur- 
 man of South Carolina, was returning through 
 Washington from Philadelphia, where he had pre- 
 sided over the Triennial Baptist Convention as its 
 first President. News of his distinction in arousing 
 Carolina to oppose Cornwallis in the Revolution 
 spread through official circles, and they lionized him 
 and insisted on his preaching in the Congressional 
 Hall. His diffidence overruled, this man for whose 
 head Cornwallis had offered a thousand pounds 
 found himself standing before the elite, the honor- 
 able, and the notable, the President, Cabinet, Min- 
 isters, Foreign Ambassadors, etc. In the midst of 
 that crowded assembly, says the Christian Register, 
 the clarion voice of Furman rang out, as it had once
 
 46 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 done in the camps of his countrymen. He seemed to 
 feel at home, as if among his High Hills of the Santee, 
 where he first put the gospel trumpet to his lips. 
 His text was characteristic : ' ' And now why tamest 
 thou? Arise and be baptized." He had great lib- 
 erty and riveted the attention of the audience. The 
 earnestness and candor with which he rebuked the 
 nobles and rulers, were enough like Nehemiah of 
 old and John the Baptist to startle his time-serving, 
 conscience-stricken hearers. He paused in the last 
 sentence of his peroration and surveying for an in- 
 stant the scene before him, as he stood upon the 
 climax of his appeal and while all was still as the 
 grave, uttered with the utmost effort of his clear, 
 stentorian voice, "And now why tarriest thou? 
 Arise and be baptized." At the word "arise," not 
 a few of his august but electrified hearers did arise 
 from their seats, as if alarmed at their past sinful 
 sluggishness. 
 
 15. Pioneer Street Preaching. It was on a Sun- 
 day in Nacogdoches, Texas, in 1836. Crudeness of 
 the frontier stamped the young town. Rev. Z. N. 
 Morrell, pioneer preacher, rode into the place on a 
 mule, just arrived from far-away Tennessee. An 
 election was in progress and crowds thronged the 
 streets. Morrell tied his mule in a thicket near by, 
 got on his knees, and asked God if he must preach 
 to that crowd, and came out among the people. He 
 got up on the foundation timbers of a house, the 
 construction of which had started, selected a corner 
 for a pulpit, held his watch up high in his hand, and 
 shouted: "Oh-Yes! Oh-Yes! Oh-Yes! Everybody
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 47 
 
 that wants to buy, without money and without price, 
 come this way. ' ' The motley throng closed in about 
 the speaker, and he commenced to sing the old 
 hymn, "Am I a soldier of the cross?" By the time 
 the song ended the whole population was in the 
 crowd. He offered a prayer and sang another hymn 
 amid profound silence. Astonishment, rather than 
 reverence, was stamped on the red, white and black 
 faces which looked up at the preacher. Across the 
 street a second story piazza filled with men and 
 women. Some covered wagons and a carriage bring- 
 ing in immigrants, drove up to the edge of the throng 
 and stopped. In one of the "schooners" the eagle 
 eye of the preacher recognized a friend and his 
 family from Hardeman County, Tennessee, three of 
 whose daughters he had baptized in the old State. 
 Thrilled, Morrell took as his text Isaiah 35:1 "The 
 wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
 them ; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 
 the rose." Never had the stalwart man of God 
 received better attention. He had great liberty for 
 an hour, and the faces of scores of the adventurous 
 spirits there were suffused with tears, which were 
 surprised from hearts unaccustomed in that new 
 land to the voice of love. "When he ceased speaking, 
 they pressed forward to grasp his hand. How won- 
 derfully in Texas has the prophecy of that text 
 been fulfilled! 
 
 16. Thrills of the Frontier. It was a Sunday night 
 preaching service in 1842, at a small school-house, 
 four miles above Gonzales. The neighboring Indian 
 tribes were in an ugly mood and had recently killed
 
 48 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 a number of settlers. As Elder Morrell preached, 
 armed men stood guard outside in the dark and 
 others sat at the rear of the congregation with guns 
 across their knees. The preacher spoke with power, 
 the attention was intense, and there were earnest 
 prayers for protection from the Indians. The con- 
 gregation was dismissed. Before the people had 
 gotten their teams hitched up, the report of a gun- 
 shot broke the silence, and then a shrill Indian 
 whistle. The people proceeded homeward with much 
 caution and in a body, as most of them lived in the 
 same direction. Elder Morrell led the silent pro- 
 cession in his ox-cart, in which were his own and 
 two other families. Other similar conveyances fol- 
 lowed. The silence, broken only by the crunching 
 wheels and the tugging beasts, became oppressive. 
 Some one suggested that a song be sung to drive 
 away the gloom. And then echoed out along the 
 valley of the Gaudalupe the plaintive, rythmic 
 notes of an old song, which must have touched even 
 the savage hearts of the lurking Indians 
 
 "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, 
 
 And cast a wishful eye, 
 To Canaan's fair and happy land, 
 
 Where my possessions lie. 
 
 "Oh, sacred hope ; oh, blissful hope, 
 
 By inspiration given, 
 The hope, when days and years are passed, 
 
 We all shall meet in heaven.' 
 
 "I then thought," wrote the old veteran, years 
 later, "and I still think that amid the solemnities of 
 that hour I heard music which was sweeter to my
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 49 
 
 soul than any other which ever fell upon my ears." 
 17. Pioneer Women. Even in so brief and in- 
 adequate a group of illustrations of the work and 
 life of those early-day preachers, it would be im- 
 proper not to utter a word of appreciation of the 
 godly women who, either as wives of the preachers 
 or as the friends and helpers of their good work, 
 bore a noble and influential part in helping to Chris- 
 tianize the South. No sacrifice in loneliness, priva- 
 tion, or danger seemed too great for these pioneer 
 women, if by enduring they could help forward the 
 cause of righteousness. When the preacher was 
 absent for weeks, the wife became both the provider 
 and protector of the home. ''Aunt" Chloe Holt was 
 a noble-hearted and daring woman who lived near 
 the South Fork of Cole 's Creek in Mississippi in 1795 r 
 when Rev. Richard Curtis, a prominent early-day 
 preacher in Mississippi, was being threatened and 
 persecuted by the Roman Catholic authorities at 
 Natchez. Following the persistence of Curtis in 
 preaching to the Mississippians, the persecution be- 
 came so acute that his life was in jeopardy. Curtis 
 was hiding in the swamp and the myrmidons of 
 the hierarchy were searching for him. He was sorely 
 in need of information about the spies and of sup- 
 plies for the journey it had been decided he should 
 make back to South Carolina. Not a person could 
 be found willing to go to him with the necessary 
 supplies, lest he should fall under the penalty of 
 "aiding and abetting" the escape of the refugees. 
 Aunt Chloe dressed herself in men's clothing, mount- 
 ed a horse, went in search of Curtis, and found him.
 
 60 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 She delivered to the preacher and nis companions 
 the supplies, gave them her blessing, and returned 
 to her own lonely pioneer home. Usually the ro- 
 mantic element was not so prominent in the noble 
 devotion of the pioneer women, but their zeal 
 was none the less real and potent. Less heralded 
 than the work of the men, the pioneer wives and 
 mothers bore equally with them the hardships of 
 subduing the wilderness and did more than the 
 men in setting up the institutions of religion to safe- 
 guard the home. 
 
 18. Baptist Debt to Unsalaried Early Preachers. 
 Baptists owe an immense debt to the pioneer 
 preachers, who preached practically at their own 
 charges with a passion comparable to that of the 
 Apostolic Age, who cheerfully endured persecution, 
 and who found no wilderness path too lonely to 
 traverse and no pioneer settlement too crude or 
 remote for them to serve, who led and won the 
 battle for religious liberty in America, and whose 
 evangelistic zeal has never been excelled. These men 
 were paid in appreciation and the joy of seeing souls 
 born in the early churches, but not with money. 
 Among the descendant churches and preachers the 
 nobility and worth of these pioneers of the cross 
 have not been fully realized. We have accorded 
 words of honor to the pioneer prophet. Some have 
 affected an air of excusatory apology for his 
 idiosyncrasies, but we have not brought ourselves 
 close enough to him to realize what a man he was, 
 that he was in very truth the spiritual father of all 
 our denomination has and is today, and that his un-
 
 THE EARLY BAPTIST PREACHER 61 
 
 stinted spiritual labors, out of which this great Bap- 
 tist body was born, were performed at his own costs. 
 To the noble part which these preachers played in 
 bringing religious liberty in America the next 
 two chapters will be devoted. 
 
 19. All Honor to Them. All honor to these men. 
 I respectfully invite the hearts of all who love the 
 true, the noble, and the brave to consider these 
 pioneer preachers. I especially summons Baptists to 
 look upon these, their spiritual forbears, and to 
 chasten their hearts in the exercise of reflecting upon 
 the high moral worth of men, the quaintness and 
 provincialism of some of whom there is danger that 
 the superficial in our own relatively cosmopolitan 
 day shall foolishly patronize, though they be un- 
 worthy to take off the shoes of such men. Macauley 
 said that a people who do not honor the deeds 
 of their worthy dead will do nothing worthy of be- 
 ing honored by their descendants. I affectionately 
 invite our Baptist heart, and more especially the 
 hearts of our young people, whose day of responsible 
 leadership will be one step further removed than 
 ours from the pioneers, to ponder much the heroism 
 and moral worth of these spiritual forbears. From 
 the exercise we cannot but come back to the tasks 
 of our own day with added strength and purpose. 
 "We cannot rightly understand either Baptist Mis- 
 sions in the South or the Baptist mission in the 
 South till we understand them. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II. 
 1. Describe the early Baptist preacher.
 
 62 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 2. Tell of his fondness for the frontier places. 
 
 3. What of his education? 
 
 4. Give some evidences that he was not ignorant. Give an 
 illustration of his wrong interpretation of texts. 
 
 5. What does Dr. Riley say of his passion for souls? 
 
 6. What of his salary? What does Dr. Pendleton say of a 
 $400 salary in Kentucky in 1836? Quote Benedict on the 
 support of early preachers in Virginia. Tell of the stipend 
 of a pioneer preacher in South Carolina. 
 
 7. Give an estimate of the property owned by Baptist preach- 
 ers in 1813. What does this indicate as to their business 
 ability? How does it compare with their wealth now? 
 
 8. Name two causes of non-support. 
 
 9. What effect on pastoral support had the reaction from the 
 Established Church? 
 
 10. Why were the early preachers well worth knowing? 
 
 11. Describe the work of Jesse Mercer in Georgia. 
 
 12. Tell the story of Shubal Stearns and Elnathan Davis. 
 
 13. Tell of the conversion of Samuel Harriss in Virginia. 
 What of his value as a preacher? 
 
 14. Tell of Richard Furman preaching before Congress. 
 
 15. Tell of Z. N. Morrell, of Tennessee, preaching on the 
 streets of a pioneer Texas town. 
 
 16. Tell of Elder Morrell's night preaching in a pioneer 
 school house and of the Indians. 
 
 17. Tell of the pioneer women and of Chloe Holt's brave 
 deed to help Rev. Richard Curtis. 
 
 18. What is our Baptist debt to the early preachers? What 
 of their dignity and worth? 
 
 19. Why should we honor their memory? What does Macau- 
 ley say about honoring the deeds of the past?
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
 
 In glancing backward at Baptist beginnings in Virginia, we 
 may well gather inspiration and hope for the future. It ought 
 to nourish within us a spirit of the most vigorous and 
 healthful optimism. In the days of our fathers we beheld 
 law as trammelled by custom and fettered by ignorance. 
 Justice is seen to have been bigoted and blind. Before her 
 statue, in the garb in which our fathers knew her, we would 
 feel much as Madame Roland felt when, on her way to the 
 guillotine, she cried out before the statue of Liberty, and 
 our cry would be: "O Justice! what crimes are perpetrated 
 in thy name." 
 
 A review, such as we now make, is due the cause of 
 historic justice. The writers of our history have not always 
 been candid and just towards our Baptist fathers. A work 
 widely used in our public schools today has this comment on 
 the era of their oppression: "There was never any active 
 religious persecution in Virginia." Another eminent Vir- 
 ginia writer says: "There was no terror in the law to any 
 one who chose to worship God in their own way and place, 
 except a trivial fine for being absent from church." Again 
 he says: "In the history of the vestries of the Episcopal 
 Establishment may be fairly traced that religious liberty 
 which afterwards developed itself in Virginia." 
 
 Our venerated Baptist fathers, misunderstood, maligned, 
 and severaly dealt with in their day, have been often since 
 passed by in silence, and have as often had their motives 
 and actions misrepresented or perverted. They sleep in their 
 neglected graves, with never a look to give, a hand to raise, 
 or a word to speak in their own defence. It becomes us 
 who have entered into their heritage, and sit beneath the 
 shade of the goodly tree planted by their toils and watered 
 by their tears, to vindicate their precious memory and 
 perpetuate in faithfulness and truth the story of their deeds 
 and sufferings. George W. Beale, D.D.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 1. A Subject of Thrilling Interest. It is pro- 
 posed to present for study an account of the heroic 
 struggle of Baptists for religious liberty in America. 
 Only a brief story may here be set forth. But no 
 subject treated in this volume will better repay 
 a full study by the student, or fill him more with 
 admiration for the consistent and unwavering devo- 
 tion of Baptists to the principle of religious and civil 
 democracy. It is hoped the student may be incited 
 to a fuller study of this glorious achievement of Bap- 
 tists. For a suggested nucleus of volumes bearing 
 on the subject the student is referred to the Bibliog- 
 raphy. 
 
 2. Baptists Were Revolutionary Patriots. Civil 
 and religious liberty are two applications of the 
 same principle. The long-drawn-out persecution of 
 Baptists and other Dissenters in the American Col- 
 onies, had much to do in creating among the people 
 the attitude of mind which resulted in their gather- 
 ing to the standard of Washington to throw off the 
 English yoke, from which came the power of both 
 civil and religious oppression. Baptists had suffered 
 more than others from religious persecution 
 and their consciences were offended in more ways. 
 At the date of the Eevolution they were more 
 numerous than any other dissenting body in the
 
 66 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 South. The armies of the Revolution thronged with 
 Baptists. Washington declared that, "Baptist chap- 
 lains were among the most prominent and useful in 
 the army." Their preachers enlisted as private sol- 
 diers along with the laymen, or, as did Elder Mc- 
 Clanahan of Virginia, raised companies of volun- 
 teers and in the war acted both as commander and 
 chaplain. 
 
 3. Active in Inciting the People. The Baptist 
 preachers who stayed at home were so active in 
 stirring up the people to fight for American Inde- 
 pendence, that they aroused the particular animosity 
 of the English commanders. Many of them put 
 their lives in jeopardy and not a few had to flee 
 from the English wrath. The South Carolina gov- 
 ernment at Charleston appointed a committee of 
 three to visit the back districts of the Colony to 
 arouse the people to fight for America. Two of the 
 three were Revs. Oliver Hart and William Tennant, 
 Baptist preachers, chosen for their patriotism and 
 known influence among the people. It was in the 
 same Colony that the elder Dr. Richard Furman so 
 powerfully swayed the people by his eloquent calls 
 to patriotism, as he spoke in barns and on stumps, and 
 also in the pulpit, that Lord Cwnwallis offered 
 a reward of a thousand pounds for his head. Find- 
 ing that the Tories were on his track, young Fur- 
 man fled to the American camp, which by his pray- 
 ers and eloquent appeals he reassured and encour- 
 aged so much that Cornwallis was reported to have 
 remarked that he feared the prayers of that godly 
 young Baptist preacher more than the armies of
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 57 
 
 Sumter and Marion. The then aged Rev. Daniel 
 Marshall of North Carolina, rendering a like heroic 
 service, was at last arrested and placed under strong 
 guard. Being granted permission to speak, he so 
 overwhelmed his enemies by his patriotic exhor- 
 tations and prayers that they promptly set him free. 
 Cathcart in Baptist Encyclopedia declares that 
 there was only one Tory Baptist preacher in the 
 whole of America. 
 
 4. Religious Liberty not Indigenous in the Col- 
 onies. Many of the early Colonists fled to America 
 to secure religious liberty, but it never occurred to 
 most of them to extend the same boon to others 
 whose religious belief might differ from theirs. Re- 
 ligious liberty was of slow growth. It was secured 
 in America only after a long and bitter strife, in 
 which there were numberless instances of persecu- 
 tion. The State Church, that historic stupid device 
 of kings and nations, set up its habitat with the new- 
 comers to the .American wilds. Experience had ap- 
 parently not taught them that a State Church and 
 persecution must be twin brothers just so long as 
 the conscience of man can not be regulated by civil 
 statutes. Massachusetts had the death penalty for 
 presumptous Sunday desecration, Maryland for blas- 
 phemy, Connecticut for Sunday breaking, and Vir- 
 ginia for persistent non-church attendance. Other 
 lesser punishments were provided to secure con- 
 formity to the State Church. Other Colonies had 
 laws and penalties to bolster the Established Church, 
 but without the death penalty. 
 
 5. Roger Williams. Roger Williams, a Baptist,
 
 58 
 
 who for conscience's sake was driven in bitter win- 
 ter from Massachusetts, found shelter among the 
 Indians in the wilderness, and established Rhode 
 Island, the first commonwealth in the world which 
 was built on the principle of the entire separation 
 of Church and State. Inasmuch as this has been 
 questioned, for full and conclusive proof see Ameri- 
 can State Papers on Sunday Legislation, pages 
 68-78. I cite a few authorities here. Benedict's 
 History of the Baptists, page 446: "Roger Wil- 
 liams justly claims the honor of having been the 
 first legislator in the world that fully and effectually 
 provided and established absolute liberty of con- 
 science." Sidney S. Rider's Soul Liberty Rhode 
 Island's Gift to the Nation, page 85: "Rhode Is- 
 land was the first commonwealth in the New World, 
 the first in the world, to make soul liberty the basis 
 of a Constitution for a State." Bancroft's 1888, last 
 revised edition of History of the United States, 
 page 255: "Roger Williams was the first person in 
 modern Christendom to establish civil government 
 on the doctrine of liberty of conscience." 
 
 6. Catholic Claims. Known as Roman Cath- 
 olicism is to all students for its age-long opposition 
 to religious liberty and by the trail of blood and 
 human woe which have followed its false assump- 
 tions down through nearly twenty centuries, yet it 
 is exactly Roman Catholicism which to-day chal- 
 lenges the American people with the assertion that 
 in Maryland it established the first commonwealth 
 which provided religious liberty. Maryland was 
 founded in 1625; Rhode Island in 1634. The facts
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 59 
 
 are that a limited religious tolerance was granted by 
 Maryland as a matter of policy ; while in Rhode Is- 
 land religious liberty was the bed-rock principle of 
 the commonwealth. The proof is that, (1) Lord Bal- 
 timore had to get his charter from the Protestant 
 nation of England, and so was compelled to provide 
 religious toleration. (2) The majority of Mary- 
 land's early settlers were evangelicals and had to be 
 placated. (3) The settlement being for economic, 
 not religious, ends, could not afford to drive away 
 non-Catholic immigrants, coming from other Colonies. 
 (4) The Charter guaranteed toleration for Chris- 
 tians, but not for Jews, Unitarians, and others. (5) 
 The act of 1649 provided that persons shall be pun- 
 ished who utter "words of reproach concerning the 
 blessed Virgin Mary." (See American State Pa- 
 pers on Sunday Legislation, chapter on "Maryland 
 or Rhode Island, Which?") 
 
 7. The Principle and the Conflict. The first 
 great enunciation of the principle of religious liberty 
 in America was by Roger Williams in Rhode Island. 
 Its great and epoch-making conflict with religious 
 special privilege centered in Virginia and the leaders 
 of the opposition were the Baptists. Other dissent- 
 ing religious groups, principally the Presbyterians, 
 aided. The Methodists were children, though not 
 quite obedient, of the Established Church; their 
 aid was given to the Establishment. They were few ; 
 in 1774 there were only 2,073 in America. (Stevens' 
 History of Methodism, p. 168.) The Presbyterians 
 did not aid the Baptists except for a part of 
 the time, and were hardly more than one-fourth as
 
 60 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 numerous as the Baptists in the Old Dominion, where 
 the battle was chiefly fought and won, not only for 
 Virginia but for other States and for the nation. 
 On this point Dr. Hawks, the Episcopal church 
 historian, says: "The Baptists were the principal 
 promoters of this work [the effort to do away with 
 taxation for church maintenance] and in truth, aided 
 more than any other denomination in its accomplish- 
 ment." (Episcopal Church in Virginia, 152.) Again 
 this Episcopal writer says : ' ' Persecution taught the 
 Baptists not to love the Establishment. In their 
 Association they had calmly discussed the matter 
 and resolved on their course. In this they were con- 
 sistent to the end; and the war which they waged 
 against the church was a war of extermination. 
 They seemed to have known no relentings and their 
 hostility never ceased for twenty-seven years." 
 (Episcopal Church in Virginia, 137.) 
 
 8. Not Laudation, but Truth. It is with no spirit 
 of glorification, but with a desire to further the 
 cause of truth and to appeal to the Baptists of to- 
 day to respond to the noble and the true in their 
 spiritual sires, that this chapter is written. If we 
 lament the tardiness which the spokesmen of other 
 Christian bodies of America have shown in giving 
 to Baptists the prestige and credit which justly 
 belong to them for their brave, consistent, and 
 epoch-making conflict against ecclesiastical priv- 
 ilege, which more than any other cause determined 
 the result in America of establishing religious lib- 
 erty, we do it with humility, considering ourselves 
 lest we also be tempted to withhold due credit from
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 61 
 
 other Christian groups for their service to the com- 
 mon welfare. At the same time, it would be almost 
 criminally unworthy of Baptists not to make these 
 facts clear to their own people and to their children, 
 and to others who are willing to hear and fairly in- 
 vestigate the facts. It is a heritage which chal- 
 lenges us to devote our lives to like high purposes. 
 To be indifferent to such a past or wilfully ignorant 
 of it, would be to advertise ourselves to right-think- 
 ing men as decadent children of noble spiritual sires. 
 9. Early Baptists without Prestige. Eeligious 
 liberty was not won for America by men who en- 
 joyed or sought worldly applause and honor. Ex- 
 cept in the case of Rhode Island, Baptists nowhere 
 had the prestige of founders, and in Rhode Island 
 the distinction was a fruit of the persecution of 
 Roger Williams in Massachusetts because he con- 
 tended for religious liberty, and he used his position 
 as a colony founder to establish freedom of con- 
 science, instead of jacketing his own religious creed 
 by legislation on all who should come. Early Bap- 
 tists in America had only their love of liberty, an 
 open Bible and the fear of God in their hearts. 
 Many of them had been persecuted in England; in 
 the far-extending American wilderness they were 
 impelled subjectly to do right, as they saw it, be- 
 cause it was right. Therefore they took up here 
 the burdens and the glory of the championship of 
 soul liberty. Like the early disciples, they felt that 
 they had to testify to the things God had revealed 
 to them. Their faithfulness was rewarded by re- 
 ligious liberty, both for themselves and the whole
 
 62 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 nation. It is a noble achievement of Baptists that 
 they have consistently stood for this principle 
 throughout their history. 
 
 10. Despising the Shame. In order that Bap- 
 tists might be prepared for the great part he had 
 for them to perform in throwing off the State 
 Church yoke in America, God permitted them to be 
 persecuted for righteousness' sake. Dr. B. F. Eiley 
 in History of Baptists in the Southern States de- 
 clares that the Baptist struggle for freedom in Vir- 
 ginia continued for nearly three-quarters of a cen- 
 tury. Quakers were the special antipathy in early 
 Colonial Virginia of the fastidious, fox-hunting cav- 
 alier, but the Quakers were not numerous enough 
 to keep his contempt busy. The Baptists waxed 
 strong and were aggressive; to them the Establish- 
 ment transferred its chief dislike. 
 
 11. In Other Colonies. Dissenters were perse- 
 cuted in other Colonies besides Virginia. In North 
 Carolina in 1704 the General Assembly passed a law 
 disenfranchising all Dissenters from any office of 
 trust, honor, or profit. The Battle of Alamance in 
 1771 was a clash between the Establishment-inspired 
 civil authority on the one hand and the Regulators 
 on the other. The conflict came mostly from the 
 stout opposition of Dissenters to the law taxing the 
 people to support Episcopal preachers and churches. 
 In South Carolina, which had grown up around the 
 City of Charleston, the Baptists protested against 
 similar unjust exactions of the Establishment, but 
 at the same time showed a certain desire to placate 
 the Establishment, of which the State Church took
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 63 
 
 advantage. Baptists amiably consented to allow the 
 government to pay a stipend to a popular Episcopal 
 rector in Charleston, and the greedy advocates of 
 that faith proceeded to make this concession the 
 basis of an Established Church scheme similar to 
 that in Virginia. Afterwards these pretensions were 
 scotched. Georgia Baptists firmly refused to be 
 taxed by the civil authority to support either the 
 Episcopal or their own churches. In the North the 
 hand of persecution was also engaged. But the ir- 
 repressible conflict was waged in Virginia more 
 than in all the other Colonies combined, and the 
 Baptists led the forces of opposition. Therefore it 
 is desirable to know the chief facts about the Vir- 
 ginia developments. 
 
 12. Persecution. Persecution, continuing through 
 many years, bound the Baptists together, purged 
 them of dross and vanity, and strengthened and 
 sobered them for the day when they must carry 
 the fight into the camp of their adroit and vain- 
 glorious enemy. That persecution in 1768 headed 
 up into a period of years during which scores of 
 Baptist preachers were imprisoned for preaching 
 the gospel, and every manner of contemptuous out- 
 rage perpetrated upon them and their meetings. In 
 June, 1768, John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Childs, 
 and others were seized at a church in Spottsylvania 
 County and thrown into prison on the pretext that 
 they were disturbers of the peace. Among the 
 others who at subsequent periods were thrown into 
 prison were William Webber, Joseph Anthony 
 James Greenwood, Eobert Ware, William Lovel,
 
 64 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 John Shackleford, David Dinsley, John Burriss, 
 John Young, Edward Herndon, James Goodrich, 
 Bartholomew Cheming, and John Picket. Many 
 others were imprisoned whose names have not 
 been placed on the printed page. But they are 
 known to God. The were heroes of the cross of 
 Christ. This madness of State Church power raged 
 without abatement until about 1775. At that time 
 events were shaping themselves rapidly toward the 
 Revolution and it appears to have dawned upon the 
 minds of some of the Establishment partisans that 
 the persecuted majority must somehow be placated 
 if Virginia was to stand united in the fight for In- 
 dependence. 
 
 13. The Baptists Undaunted. The Baptists were 
 not daunted by the bitter hate and derision of 
 their enemies, nor did the most flagrant acts of per- 
 secution cause them to hesitate. At the same time, 
 they did not make the mistake of resenting the acts 
 of their tormentors in their own evil spirit. In 
 the midst of their planning how they might appeal 
 to the General Assembly for relief, they appointed 
 the first and third Saturdays in June, 1774, as days 
 of fasting and prayer for "our poor blind persecu- 
 tors and the releasement of the brethren." They 
 had enough to embitter them, but were not bitter. 
 James Madison, himself an Episcopalian, but a sin- 
 cere friend of the Baptists and of religious liberty, 
 wrote in 1774, as follows: "The diabolical, hell- 
 conceived principle of persecution rages among 
 some, and to their eternal infamy be it said the 
 clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 65 
 
 purposes. There are at this time in the adjacent 
 county not less than five or six well-meaning men 
 in close jail for publishing their religious senti- 
 ments, which in the main are very orthodox." 
 
 14. Drawing First Blood. In 1775 the Baptist 
 General Association adopted their first formal ap- 
 peal to the Virginia General Assembly, praying that 
 the Established Church be abolished.* It was the 
 first of many communications from this body to the 
 Assembly, which were presented during the next 
 quarter of a century, and did not cease until the 
 last vestige of special religious privilege was taken 
 from the Virginia Statutes and adequate positive 
 pronouncements for religious liberty substituted 
 therefor. The Revolution was imminent. The Vir- 
 ginia Baptists in courteous but plain speech let the 
 General Assembly know that they were favorable 
 to any revolution by which they could obtain free- 
 dom of religion. Throughout the commonwealth 
 they circulated copies of their petition for the signa- 
 tures of the people, and these were signed by thou- 
 sands of citizens. To a separate proposal of the Bap- 
 tists that their preachers be allowed to preach to 
 army troops, the Assembly gave quick consent, not 
 allowing such preachers, however, to rank with the 
 regular Episcopal chaplains. That consent was given 
 in August, 1775. By the end of another year the 
 General Assembly had received additional light 
 from Baptists and other Dissenters. The much- 
 signed petitions of the General Association and the 
 
 'Baptists had begun to work openly for disestablishment in 1774. 
 (Semple, p. 43.)
 
 66 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 pressure of other Dissenters, along with the im- 
 minent war with the mother country, created the 
 psychological climate which on June 12, 1776, led 
 to the adoption of the Virginia Bill of Rights. 
 
 15. Section 16. Because of its influence later on 
 other State Constitutions and upon the National 
 Constitution, Section 16 of the Bill of Rights should 
 be treasured by every friend of religious liberty. Its 
 text is : " That religion, or the duty which we owe 
 to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, 
 can be directed only by reason and conviction, not 
 by force and violence; and therefore all men are 
 equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, ac- 
 cording to the dictates of conscience; and that it is 
 the natural duty of all to practice Christian for- 
 bearance, love and charity toward each other." 
 Patrick Henry wrote it and had in it the obnoxious 
 word "tolerance." James Madison revised it, cut- 
 ting out the word. The General Assembly did not 
 get those principles from their State Church preach- 
 ers; they got them mainly from Virginia Baptists, 
 who had waxed so strong under persecution that 
 their righteous demands could not be ignored any 
 longer, except at a peril to the Colony which Vir- 
 ginia's great statesmen could not contemplate. The 
 liberty of conscience pronouncement was followed 
 in October of the same year by an Act which re- 
 lieved Dissenters from the payment of taxes to the 
 Established Church. 
 
 16. Another Chapter. This chapter has given a 
 brief outline of the work of Baptists for religious 
 liberty in Virginia. It has claimed primacy for
 
 BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 67 
 
 Baptists in that monumental struggle. It has come 
 to pass that this primacy is being questioned in the 
 interest of alleged superior services rendered by 
 others. The question at stake is, of such great im- 
 portance that it has been determined to devote a 
 second chapter to a somewhat closer examination 
 of the factors which entered into that fight for re- 
 ligious freedom. If Baptists do not deserve to claim 
 first place in that most patriotic movement for re- 
 ligious liberty, they should quit doing so. If they 
 do deserve the first place, they ought to know it 
 beyond a peradventure. It would be unworthy of 
 them to let their distinguished performances in this 
 the greatest of all services a Christian body ever 
 rendered the life of the Republic to be taken away 
 from them by sheer force of unchallenged adverse 
 reiteration. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III. 
 
 1. What estimate is given of the value of a knowledge of 
 the forces which brought religious liberty? 
 
 2. What is the relation of civil and religious liberty? How 
 did the persecution of Baptists tend to bring civil liberty? 
 Give the record of Baptists in the Revolution. 
 
 3. Tell of the activity of Baptist preachers in inciting the 
 people to throw off English rule. What did Richard Fur- 
 man do? Tell of Daniel Marshall's zeal. 
 
 4. Was there religious liberty in the Colonies at first? Tell 
 of penalties of the law in different Colonies for religious 
 infractions. 
 
 5. Tell of Roger Williams. Quote authorities which testify 
 to his primacy in establishing separation of Church and 
 State. 
 
 6. Tell of Roman Catholic claims of primacy. Give proofs 
 that their claims are not tenable.
 
 68 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 7. Where was the great conflict for religious liberty fought 
 out for America? Who led it? Quote what an Episcopal 
 historian says of the Baptist primacy. 
 
 8. Why ought Baptists to know the facts about this conflict? 
 
 9. What of the lack of prestige of early Baptists? What 
 assets had they for leading the fight? 
 
 10. What did God do with Baptists to fit them to lead the 
 conflict ? 
 
 11. Tell of situation in the other Colonies. 
 
 12. When was the period of open persecution in Virginia? 
 Name some of the Baptist ministers imprisoned for preach- 
 ing the gospel. When did the madness of open persecu- 
 tion begin to abate, and why? 
 
 13. Did the Baptists quail before contempt? Tell of the days 
 of fasting and prayer they appointed. What did James 
 Madison say of the persecution? 
 
 14. What appeals to the State Legislature did Virginia Baptist 
 General Association adopt in 1775? 
 
 15. What is Section 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights? Where 
 did the Virginia Assembly get its knowledge of these 
 principles? 
 
 16. Why is a second chapter to be devoted to this subject?
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE STRUGGLE FOE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
 
 Of Baptists it may be truly said that they entered the 
 conflict in the New World with a clear and consistent record 
 on the subject of soul liberty. Freedom of conscience had 
 ever been one of their fundamental tenets. John Locke, in 
 his essay on Toleration says: "The Baptists were the first 
 and only propounders of absolute liberty, just and true 
 liberty, equal and impartial liberty." And the great Ameri- 
 can historian, Bancroft, says: "Freedom of conscience, un- 
 limited freedom of mind was from the first a trophy of 
 Baptists." Vol II, pages 66, 67. 
 
 The history of the other denominations shows that, in 
 the Old World, at least, they were not in sympathy with 
 the Baptist doctrine of soul liberty, but in favor of union 
 of Church and State, and using the civil power to compel 
 conformity to the established church. While the Revolution 
 of 1688 marked an epoch in English history, and led to the 
 passage of the Toleration Act in 1689, it did not secure 
 religious liberty to His Majesty's subjects. As Dr. Foote 
 (page 5) says: "The Protestant religion was established as 
 the religion of the State in England, under the form of 
 prelacy; in Scotland of presbytery." Charles F. James, D.D.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 1. An Honor Worth Claiming. It is to the credit 
 of various religious bodies that they should covet 
 the honor of having achieved so great a boon for 
 mankind as religious liberty. It is proper that each 
 religious group should be at pains to show what 
 part it had in bringing separation of Church and 
 State in America. A denomination of Christians 
 which contributed substantially to the result is 
 worthy of honor. It is the contention of this chap- 
 ter and the one preceding that the Baptists did 
 more to bring the result than any other Christian 
 body, and that they were the only religious group 
 which consistently and always and at all costs stood 
 for religious liberty. It is contended that they suf- 
 fered more, were more hated and persecuted for 
 their consistent opposition, did more to assure the 
 masses of the people, and knew no wavering and 
 turning when their own self-interest was appealed 
 to, and that they never let up on the Establishment 
 till it was utterly extirpated. The writer is a Bap- 
 tist and is writing principally for Baptists, but 
 hopes to set forth the facts with due regard to 
 others. It is not his desire to claim for the Baptists 
 any credit which belongs to another Christian 
 group, but to set forth the facts for Baptists and 
 for others who are willing to read and to follow
 
 72 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 their reading by a conscientious investigation of 
 original sources. If we can win the attention of 
 the student to these original sources, we shall be 
 abundantly satisfied. 
 
 2. A Belated Zeal. A zeal to magnify the part 
 which they had in bringing religious liberty in 
 America has been recently manifested for some re- 
 ligious groups by certain writers, which is much 
 beyond the zeal for the principle shown by them 
 when the conflict was actually being waged. In 
 Volume X of the South in the Building of the Na- 
 tion, a work which contains many contributions of 
 value, the article on "Religious Liberty in the 
 South" is by Dr. Thomas Gary Johnson, Professor 
 of Ecclesiastical History in Union Theological Sem- 
 inary, Richmond, Virginia. The book purports to 
 be non-sectarian and the article to tell the unbiased 
 story of how religious liberty was obtained in Vir- 
 ginia (where the conflict was really decided). Yet 
 this article (pp. 465-482) devotes five large pages 
 to the story of how two worthy Presbyterian min- 
 isters in Virginia, about a half century before the 
 war for religious liberty was waged, labored to 
 secure from the Establishment a larger toleration. 
 Then less than one page is accorded to a very mild 
 statement of the part Virginia Baptists had in put- 
 ting down the Establishment, while the great con- 
 test was really transpiring. This is followed by ten 
 pages in which Presbyterians are made to rank not 
 less than seventy-five per cent, and Baptists not 
 more than twenty-five per cent, in the activities 
 which established freedom of religion. The promi-
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 73 
 
 nence of the publication and the author of the article 
 have led to its being singled out here. The student 
 is asked to look up the article and read it. 
 
 3. Public Service of Presbyterians. The Presby- 
 terians comprise not a few of the best people in the 
 land. The writer is privileged to claim as personal 
 friends honored members of the Presbyterian body. 
 It would be a source of much regret if in trying to 
 hold for Baptists that which justly belongs to them, 
 he should unwittingly offend any member of this 
 Christian body, which can point to many great 
 things it has done in America for the general weal, 
 including its furnishing for the nation our present 
 great President. But so distinguished a Christian 
 group must certainly be generous enough to rest 
 upon the honors which it has rightfully won in 
 public service, and not seek to wrest from others 
 that which unbiased history will assuredly bestow 
 upon them. Therefore we cannot but believe that 
 the distinguished writer in the South in the Build- 
 ing of the Nation misrepresents the better spirit of 
 the Presbyterians, when he seeks in favor of his 
 own religious body to put into eclipse so well 
 proven a thing as the Baptist primacy in bringing 
 religious liberty in Virginia and in America. Bap- 
 tists have done much for the public weal, but not 
 so much that they can afford without protest to 
 allow others to take from them the credit for the 
 greatest single service they or any other religious 
 group ever rendered to society in the Republic. If 
 they did, it would be unworthy of them. Their own 
 children would discredit the worth and heroism of
 
 74 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 the noblest deeds of their spiritual sires. There- 
 fore, if we fall somewhat into controversy here, it 
 will be because we are driven to it. 
 
 4. Presbyterians once State Church Advocates. 
 The Presbyterians in early Virginia and other Col- 
 onies came chiefly from Scotland and England. In 
 Scotland Presbyterianism was the State Church. 
 Cramp's History, page 308, gives the following ex- 
 cerpt from a letter written in 1645 by the President 
 of the Scotch Parliament to the English Parliament : 
 "The Parliament of this kingdom is persuaded that 
 the piety and wisdom of the honorable houses will 
 never admit toleration of any sects or schisms 
 contrary to our Solemn League and Cove- 
 nant." The Westminster Confession declared that 
 sectarian advocates "may be lawfully called to ac- 
 count and proceeded against by the censures of 
 the church and by the power of the civil magis- 
 trate." Bishop McTyeire (Methodist) in History 
 of Methodism, page 25, says of the times just after 
 Charles I was executed in England: "The House 
 of Commons was now the Government, the Presby- 
 terians were paramount in it, and proceeded to re- 
 model the church on the plan of Westminster Abbey. 
 It was ordered that the Solemn League and Cove- 
 nant should be taken by all persons above the age 
 of eighteen; and, as this instrument bound all who 
 received it to endeavor to extirpate Episcopal 
 Church government, its enforcement led to the ejec- 
 tion of 1,600 clergymen from their livings,. Those 
 who had [while the reins were held by the Episco- 
 palians] pleaded so earnestly for liberty of con-
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 75 
 
 science, and who had deprecated the interference of 
 the civil powers in matters purely religious, now 
 that they were at the helm, were of another mind." 
 This shows that the Presbyterians had come from 
 an atmosphere of State Church dominance, and had 
 been both upon the upper and nether sides of the 
 millstone, without hitherto having learned to dislike 
 the upper side. 
 
 5. Early Acts in the Struggle. In Virginia the 
 Presbyterians found their old compatriots of the 
 Established Church in full possession, with all the 
 special religious prerogatives they could think of 
 safely corralled behind a high fence of legislation, 
 reinforced by the barbed-wire obstruction of 
 contempt and persecution for Dissenters. In these 
 circumstances, in which another religious group en- 
 joyed the pap and prerogative of government patron- 
 age, they found it easier to believe in religious free- 
 dom, as any other religious group would have done 
 which had held to the fallacious State Church idea. 
 They sought to get what privileges they could under 
 the English Act of Toleration, and in 1774, when the 
 Baptists were beginning to stir Virginia from centre 
 to circumference, agitating for the complete over- 
 throw of the Establishment, Hanover Presbytery 
 sent up an appeal to the Virginia General Assembly 
 objecting to a new Toleration Act which was then 
 before that body, and asking for equal liberties 
 with their fellow subjects, which in the end meant 
 no more than an enlarged toleration. In fact, from 
 their own records it may be shown that Presby- 
 terians did not go beyond a request for religious
 
 76 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 toleration until the Virginia State Government was 
 established. C. F. James, in Struggle for Religious 
 Liberty in Virginia, names seven Baptist petitions 
 which had, before the Hanover petition, been sent 
 up to the Assembly between 1770 and 1774, in which 
 they were driving toward nothing less than com- 
 plete religious liberty. Yet the Central Presbyterian 
 of May 16, 1888, is quoted by James as declaring 
 that in the Hanover petition "the Presbyterians 
 anticipated the Baptists in their memorials asking 
 for religious liberty." In a careful survey Dr. 
 James demonstrates that the Hanover petition did 
 not ask for religious liberty at all, but only for that 
 larger measure of toleration which was provided by 
 the original English Act of Toleration, instead of 
 the less measure of liberty intended to be provided 
 by the Toleration Act then before the General As- 
 sembly. (See Struggle for Religious Liberty in 
 Virginia, pp. 32-47 et alii.) 
 
 6. The Stamp Act. Dr. Johnson in the article 
 already referred to says that Patrick Henry se- 
 cured the adoption of the Stamp Act in 1765 in the 
 Virginia Assembly, "which made the Revolutionary 
 War inevitable, by the aid of the upper counties, 
 Scotch-Irish and Huguenot Dissenters chiefly Pres- 
 byterians." We rejoice in all those Scotch-Irish 
 Presbyterians did at that juncture, but it is mis- 
 leading not to tell the whole story, which throws 
 quite another light on the incident. The Stamp Act 
 was passed in 1765 by but a single vote. The next 
 day the men who voted for it became alarmed and 
 actually expunged it from the House Journal.
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 77 
 
 (Howison's History of Virginia, p. 52, and Cath- 
 cart, p. 975.) In 1776, eleven years later, Virginia 
 withdrew from English rule on the ground which 
 she had taken by a majority of one in 1765, and 
 from which she shamefully withdrew the next day. 
 What made the great change in Virginia? 
 
 7. A Baptist Victory. "In 1774," says Howison, 
 "the Baptists increased on every side. If one 
 preacher was imprisoned, ten arose to take his 
 place; if one congregation was dispersed, a larger 
 assembled on the next opportunity." Semple also 
 testified to the rapid spread of the Baptist faith at 
 this time. Dr. S. L. Morris, Secretary of the South- 
 ern Presbyterian Home Mission Board, in his book, 
 At Our Doors, page 16, says that in 1789 there were 
 only 20,000 Presbyterians in the whole of the United 
 States. There were, in 1789, 18,830 Baptists in 
 Virginia alone, (Catheart's Baptist Encyclopedia, 
 p. 1324) with probably 100,000 persons who were 
 of the Baptist opinion. If one-fourth of all the 
 Presbyterians were in Virginia alone, there were 
 almost four times as many Baptists there as Pres- 
 byterians. The disparity in numbers was probably 
 not greater than the difference in the principles 
 which actuated, on the one hand that religious body 
 which for generations had accepted the State 
 Church principle, and on the other the body which 
 had everywhere and always at all costs stood for 
 absolute freedom of conscience and for the separa- 
 tion of Church and State. It was because of the 
 marvelous growth and the tenacity of purpose 
 in Virginia of the Baptists, that the Stamp Act prin-
 
 78 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 ciple, which had shone for a moment in 1765, and 
 then raced back behind the clouds, came out into 
 a clear sky in 1776, there to shine with splendor 
 and blessing through all future years. 
 
 8. Ask that Establishment Be Overthrown. In 
 1774 the Baptist General Assembly began to make 
 their demands that the Establishment should be 
 uprooted. Presbyterians never made any such de- 
 mands until after the republican government was 
 established in 1776, when the victory was practically 
 won. On page forty-three of his History of. Vir- 
 ginia Baptists, Semple says: "So favorable did 
 their prospects appear that, toward the close of 
 the year 1774 they began to entertain serious hopes, 
 not only of obtaining liberty of conscience, but of 
 actually overturning the church establishment, from 
 whence all their oppression had arisen. Petitions 
 for this purpose were accordingly drawn and cir- 
 culated with great industry. Vast numbers readily, 
 and indeed eagerly, subscribed to them." These pe- 
 titions, prepared and circulated among the people 
 by Baptists, did not usually pose as Baptist peti- 
 tions. The Baptists educated the people concerning 
 the situation and made common cause with them. 
 This explains in part why in several books much 
 space is given to certain Presbyterian petitions, 
 while more significant Baptist activities are rele- 
 gated to a foot-note or altogether ignored. On page 
 eighty-four Semple says that in 1775 the Baptists 
 again openly took counsel together about how to 
 put down the Establishment. The General Asso- 
 ciation, which some years before had divided into
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 79 
 
 two sections, held a united meeting in order "to 
 strive together for the abolishing of the hierarchy." 
 Again they drew up petitions to this end for the 
 people to sign, with a view of pressing the legisla- 
 ture with them next year. Their petitions were 
 signed by many thousands. In the meantime, they 
 immediately sent to that body a document, promis- 
 ing Baptist support to the Revolution and asking 
 that their preachers be allowed to serve as chaplains 
 in the army. This last request was granted and then, 
 says Dr. Hawks, the prominent Episcopal writer, 
 "the first step was made toward placing the clergy 
 of all denominations on an equal footing in Vir- 
 ginia." 
 
 9. Living up to Their Principles. In these ac- 
 tions Baptists were only living up to their fixed 
 principles regarding soul liberty. It is not to blame 
 the Presbyterians to show that their zeal and ac- 
 tivity became much modified and conditioned as the 
 time passed. It is to be remembered that their an- 
 tecedents allowed them to feel more kindly toward 
 special religious prerogative. It would have been 
 more blameworthy of the Baptists had they wavered 
 or temporized, for their bed-rock principles were 
 involved. In early Virginia Presbyterians had more 
 scholarly preachers than the Baptists, but the as- 
 tute and determined guidance which those early 
 Baptist preachers gave to the popular revolt against 
 religious oppression, had in it a competency which 
 was of more value than scholastic learning and a 
 zeal which was resistless, because it was illumined 
 by the lessons of the imprisonments and insults
 
 80 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 they had long borne. More than any other body 
 of men they had the ear and the heart of the masses 
 of the people, on whom the cause of civil freedom 
 depended, and they used their influence with untir- 
 ing energy, keen watchfulness, and wonderful skill 
 during the entire period of the conflict, without 
 resting or failing for a single day until the last 
 vestige of the Establishment was destroyed. 
 
 10. Pedo-Baptist Testimony. "While there seems 
 to be an effort in certain quarters to put into par- 
 tial eclipse the great achievement of Baptists in 
 winning religious liberty for America, there is still 
 abundant non-Baptist testimony to their primacy 
 in this work. Dr. Hawks, the distinguished Epis- 
 copal church historian, will not be accused of par- 
 tiality to the Baptists. He says in his History of 
 the Episcopal Church of Virginia: "The Baptists 
 were the principal promoters of the work [of put- 
 ting down the Establishment], and in truth aided 
 more than any other denomination in its accom- 
 plishment." Bishop Meade, also an Episcopalian, 
 in Old Churches and Families of Virginia, p. 52, 
 says: "The Baptists took the lead in dissent, and 
 were the chief object of persecution by the magis- 
 trates, and the most violent and persevering after- 
 ward in seeking the downfall of the Establishment. ' ' 
 Campbell, in History of Virginia, p. 553, says : ' ' The 
 Baptists, having suffered persecution under the Es- 
 tablishment, were of all others the most inimical 
 to it, and the most active in its subversion." The 
 author of American State Papers, who is open to 
 the suspicion of wishing to minimize the part of the
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 81 
 
 Baptists in bringing religious liberty, seems to re- 
 pent on page 195, to the extent of giving them this 
 testimony in a foot-note: "No church in history, 
 perhaps, has done more for religious liberty than 
 the Baptists ; no church has so long and so logically 
 upheld the principles of individual freedom in all 
 religious concerns." Howison in History of Vir- 
 ginia, Vol. II, page 170, says: "The influence of 
 the Baptists was strong among the common people, 
 and was beginning to be felt in high places. In two 
 points they were distinguished. First, their love for 
 freedom. . . . Secondly, in their hatred of the 
 church Establishment. They hated not its minis- 
 ters, but its principles." Dr. Leonard Baker, who 
 was known in his later years as the nestor of Con- 
 gregationalism, writes thus of the Baptists in his 
 New England Theocracy: "It has been claimed for 
 these churches that from the age of the Reformation 
 onward they have always been foremost and always 
 consistent in maintaining the doctrine of religious 
 liberty. Let me not be understood as calling in ques- 
 tion their right to so great an honor." William H. 
 Cobb, of Boston, in Meaning of Christian Unity, p. 
 136: "Jefferson testified that he derived his practi- 
 cal conceptions of civil liberty from the actual work- 
 ing of the doctrine of equal rights in a little Baptist 
 Church in Virginia." Not one of these Writers is a 
 Baptist. 
 
 11. In 1776. The Establishment was not put 
 down in a year. It seemed to have many lives. Dis- 
 comfited at one point it fell back on the next line 
 of defence. It fought at many points between 1776
 
 82 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 and 1785, and did not really stop till 1800. Statutes 
 bolstering it honey-combed the Virginia code of 
 laws, and the Establishment strenuously opposed 
 every new move that increased the distance be- 
 tween it and the government pap. The first gen- 
 eral defeat of the Establishment was in 1776. Jeffer- 
 son, who had left Congress to join James Madison 
 and George Mason in leading the Virginia Dis- 
 senters in shaking off of the backs of the people 
 the incubus of the Virginia hierarchy, described 
 the 1776 conflict as "the severest in which he ever 
 engaged." Piles of petitions before the Assembly, 
 sought relief from the Establishment. Jefferson says 
 of the result : ' ' After desperate contests in the House 
 committee almost daily from the eleventh of Oc- 
 tober to the fifth of December, a bill was brought in 
 repealing the laws which restrained freedom of 
 religious opinion in worship, exempting Dissenters 
 from all levies, taxes, and impositions whatever for 
 the support of the Established Church." It was a 
 great victory; but the Establishment still had 
 strength to make a lot of trouble before it was 
 finally put down. 
 
 12. The Assessment. The apple of the eye of 
 the Establishment was the assessment. It was 
 officially "killed" in the last paragraph, but 
 the executioners had to promise not to bury the de- 
 ceased at once, and there is always danger such a 
 decedent may come to life. "In the bill passed," 
 writes Jefferson in Vol. I, page 32, of his Works, 
 "was inserted an express reservation whether a gen- 
 eral assessment should not be established by law
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 83 
 
 on every one to support the pastor of his choice; 
 or whether all should be left to voluntary contribu- 
 tion." In 1779 the Establishment was to see this 
 hopeful substitute also slaughtered. Not even then 
 was the Establishment sure it must part forever 
 from its well beloved assessment. In 1784, with 
 such friends as it could marshall, it was clamoring 
 at the doors of the legislative halls in petitions 
 which descanted in solemn and decorous terms upon 
 the desirability of a general assessment, each man 
 for his favored church. In 1785 the last reincarna- 
 tion of the Establishment's good friend was finally 
 laid to rest. The mourners were select but few. 
 
 13. Baptists and Presbyterians. Baptists and 
 Presbyterians were practically all of the Dissenters 
 in Virginia at this time. Both had fought the as- 
 sessment which they had to pay to the Establish- 
 ment. How did each behave when confronted by 
 the touchstone of the general assessment? For the 
 Baptists it is sufficient to say that which is abun- 
 dantly proven elsewhere, that to a man, layman and 
 preacher, they fought this insidious proposition as 
 they did all others which meant the sacrifice of 
 complete religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson, in his 
 Works, in the next sentence to that quoted above, 
 says: "This question of the general assessment, 
 debated at every session from 1776 to 1779, (some 
 of the dissenting allies, having now secured their 
 particular object, going over to the advocates of a 
 general assessment) we could only obtain a sus- 
 pension from session to session until 1779, when the 
 question against a general assessment was finally
 
 84 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 carried, and the establishment of the Anglican 
 Church put down." Who were those "dissenting 
 allies?" Certainly no one has ever accused them 
 of being Baptists. An article in Christian Review 
 of January, 1860, by E. G. Robinson, D. D., is quoted 
 by James in Struggle for Religious Liberty in Vir- 
 ginia, as follows: "Among these petitioners, [be- 
 fore Virginia Assembly, 1776] the most active were 
 undoubtedly the Presbyterians and the Baptists. 
 The former argued their petitions on various 
 grounds, and indeed sought for different degrees of 
 religious freedom, while the latter were undeviating 
 and uncompromising in their demands for a total 
 exemption from every kind of legal restraint or in- 
 terference in matters of religion. For this they 
 were misrepresented and maligned, and treated with 
 every sort of indignity and persecution." It was 
 the Presbyterians whose ardor cooled at this junc- 
 ture. Corroborative proof was to follow. 
 
 14. A Ridiculous Spectacle. The love of money 
 has often made men ridiculous. The divisions of 
 the Presbyterians over the assessment was a thing 
 to make the profane laugh, but even the children of 
 light might be pardoned for smiling at the perform- 
 ances of the Established Church people when they 
 faced the dire prospect of parting forever from 
 their adored assessment. When the contest 
 began there were on one side gentlemen whose 
 raiment was broadcloth and fine linen and 
 whose manner of living included servants in livery, 
 large estates, and gay social functions. On the other 
 was a people disadvantaged socially, politically, and
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 85 
 
 financially. They not seldom lived in cabins on rented 
 land; they wore buckskin clothes. The gentlemen 
 of broadcloth affected to despise them, the ignorant, 
 "impossible" Baptists. But 1775 has ripened into 
 1784. The assessment is in dire straits, and these 
 plain people are in a great majority and have the 
 votes. Behold the favored and tender sons of the 
 Establishment with petitions in their hands thread- 
 ing the wilderness paths on the hunt for the cabin 
 of the hitherto despised settler, their boots muddy 
 and their garments stained with bruised weeds and 
 covered with grass seed. They are come to implore 
 the settler to sign a petition to help them hold on 
 to the sweet assessment. 
 
 15. In 1785. The last crucial date for the Es- 
 tablishment was in 1785. The Presbyterians divided 
 on the issue of the general assessment. It did not 
 appeal to many of the laymen, but nearly all the 
 ministers developed a strong liking for the propo- 
 sition. The Episcopalians beheld this and took com- 
 fort at the thought of new allies, but they were to be 
 disappointed in the event. In 1784 (See James' 
 Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia, 126.) 
 the Presbyterian clergy went over in a body in 
 favor of a general assessment and sent up a me- 
 morial to that effect to the General Assembly. 
 James Madison, in April, 1785, wrote a letter to 
 James Monroe, which appears in Rives' Life and 
 Times of Madison, I, 630, and which is quoted in 
 James' Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia, 
 130. In the letter he said: "The Episcopalians 
 are generally for the assessment, though I think
 
 86 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 the zeal of some of them has cooled. The laity of 
 the other sects are generally unanimous on the other 
 side. So are all the clergy, except the Presbyterians, 
 who seem as ready to set up an Establishment which 
 is to take them in as they were to pull down that 
 which shuts them out. I do not know a more shame- 
 ful contrast than might be found between their me- 
 morial on the latter and former occasions." Hap- 
 pily Hanover Presbytery was not willing to stand 
 in this position. The laymen must have taken the 
 preachers in hand. In May, 1785, Hanover Presby- 
 tery declared: "The opinion of Presbytery was 
 taken whether they do approve of any kind of an 
 assessment by the General Assembly for the sup- 
 port of religion. Presbytery are unanimously 
 against such a measure." (Foote's Sketches of Vir- 
 ginia, 341.) The tardy Presbyterian preachers again 
 joined their Baptist brethren in the good work. 
 When the State Assembly met there was a flood of 
 petitions against the general assessment and it was 
 at last put down. At the same session Jefferson's 
 famous bill establishing religious freedom, which 
 he prepared after repeated conferences with the 
 Baptists, (Howell, Early Baptists of Virginia, 167) 
 was passed. 
 
 16. An Illuminating Incident. An incident hap- 
 pened in 1784 which shows that Presbyterians at 
 that time did not have the settled convictions of the 
 Baptists about the separation of Church and State. 
 On June 1, 1784, the trustees of Hampden-Sidney 
 College petitioned the State Legislature to give 
 them 400 acres of land in the neighborhood of the
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 87 
 
 college. This the Assembly granted on June 10th. 
 It is to be remembered that the early Virginia Pres- 
 byterians had come from an atmosphere surcharged 
 with religious privilege and had not yet fully learn- 
 ed the better way. 
 
 17. The First Amendment. After the contest 
 was won in Virginia, and the Constitution of the 
 United States was adopted, the lynx-eyed Virginia 
 Baptists scrutinized that document to see if it prop- 
 erly safeguarded religious liberty. They decided 
 that it did not. They held a consultation with 
 their friend, James Madison, after which, on Au- 
 gust 8, 1789, their General Committee addressed a 
 communication on the subject to President George 
 Washington. This communication and Washing- 
 ton's courteous and encouraging reply may be 
 found in many historical volumes. In the reply 
 Washington said of the Baptists that they "have 
 been throughout America uniformly and almost 
 unanimously the firm friends of civil liberty and the 
 persevering promoters of our glorious Revolution." 
 The outcome of the correspondence was that a 
 month later James Madison, with the approval of 
 Washington, introduced in the National House of 
 Representatives the First Amendment to the Con- 
 stitution, to safeguard religious liberty and a free 
 and untrammelled press. The Virginia Baptists 
 were the only Christian body which moved for the 
 First Amendment, and they deserve the everlasting 
 gratitude of every Christian body in America, ex- 
 cept the Roman Hierarchy. 
 
 18. A Great Service. Had not the Amendment
 
 88 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 been adopted, Massachusetts, from the first disposed 
 to a State Church, and persecuting bitterly both 
 Roger Williams and the young State of Rhode Is- 
 land, might today be under the thraldom of an 
 established religion. So might any other State in 
 which one religious body could get civil control. 
 Without this Amendment, a dozen or more American 
 States would probably be openly and avowedly con- 
 trolled by Roman Catholics. Of the First Amend- 
 ment Cathcart says: "The grandest feature of the 
 Constitution is the first clause of the First Amend- 
 ment. The Baptists have justly claimed that the 
 credit for this Amendment belongs chiefly to them." 
 The Massachusetts ruling class as bitterly detested 
 religious liberty in those days as did the same class 
 in Virginia. The masses of the people nowhere 
 found their voice at this critical juncture, except 
 through Virginia Baptists. God gave them a voice 
 and two powerful friends Washington and Madi- 
 son. That which the people wanted but which had 
 been everywhere spoken against, was performed by 
 those two great statesmen, and to America was se- 
 cured the priceless boon of religious liberty. Some 
 writers are today anxious to claim for other relig- 
 ious bodies the credit of bringing religious liberty. 
 One almost despairs of the public ever learning the 
 truth about a controverted question of history so 
 long as there are men living whose predilections tend 
 to warp vision. 
 
 19. Episcopal Claims. Dr. Randolph Harrison 
 McKim, Episcopal clergyman at Washington, D. C., 
 and President of the House of Clerical and Lay
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 89 
 
 Deputies, in an article on "Established Church in 
 Virginia" in the South in the Building of the Na- 
 tion, Vol. X, pages 437-452, declares that "we may 
 fairly trace in the histories of the vestries the origin, 
 not only of that religious liberty which afterwards 
 developed itself in Virginia, but also of the early 
 and determined stand taken by the Episcopalians 
 in Virginia, on behalf of civil liberty." Again Dr. 
 McKim says: "These churchmen of the thirteen 
 colonies, in common with their Protestant brethren 
 of other names, had felt the impulse of the Reforma- 
 tion toward personal liberty in Church and State. 
 Only, the English church was looked to as the great 
 bulwark of the Protestant cause, and this, perhaps, 
 naturally intensified their feelings as the sons and 
 heirs of liberty." This seems to mean that the 
 English Church in England, where it still "tolerates" 
 the non-conformists, and by governmental aid en- 
 joys rights it does its best to keep them from having, 
 is more zealous for religious liberty than other evan- 
 gelical bodies are. It seems to mean that in Vir- 
 ginia and other Colonies, where the early Episcopal 
 body for more than a century used to the full its pow- 
 er of special prerogatives from the State to discour- 
 age, crowd out, and persecute persons of other faiths 
 than its own, this Established Church group had a 
 more intense desire for religious liberty than others. 
 In this article, which has unfortunately been ac- 
 corded a place in these volumes, the purpose of which 
 is to represent fairly and dispassionately the facts 
 concerning the life of the South, the able Dr. McKim 
 magnifies at length the service which George Mason,
 
 90 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Patrick Henry, George Washington, and other dis- 
 tinguished Americans of that day who were mem- 
 bers of the Episcopal church, rendered to the cause 
 of religious liberty, and in his admiration of their 
 good work forgets to mention that the Establishment 
 as a body was bitterly opposed to religious liberty 
 and fought with every weapon it could command 
 and by every means available its every step of 
 progress. 
 
 20. The Facts Refute the Claims. We welcome 
 Dr. McKim and other Episcopalians to that group 
 of Americans who take pride in the separation of 
 Church and State in this country. It is to their 
 credit that they should desire to claim an honorable 
 part and even a monopoly in bringing about in 
 America so great a boon to mankind. But it is de- 
 sirable for all parties that no one should claim for 
 his religious group more than the facts justify. 
 Baptists take pleasure in all that the Episcopalian 
 brethren do to bring the Kingdom of God among 
 men, but cannot forget the indisputable facts of the 
 imprisonments and the flagellations and contemp- 
 tuous persecutions which their spiritual forefathers 
 received at the instigation and with the participation 
 of both Episcopal vestrymen and clergymen in 
 Colonial Virginia and in the Carolinas and Georgia. 
 Nor can any student of history dispute the record 
 of the industrious, determined, and sometimes bitter 
 opposition of the Establishment to every act of the 
 legislature of Virginia that looked toward or even 
 squinted at a larger measure of religious rights to 
 others than Episcopalians. "The sons of the
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 91 
 
 Church" of whom Dr. McKim speaks above, deserve 
 all the honor Episcopalians or others can give them. 
 They were patriots and statesmen and they worked 
 for religious liberty against the dominant spirit of 
 their own church, because in the atmosphere of lib- 
 erty created by a strong and growing Baptist con- 
 stituency in America they were given to see that the 
 State Church had no place. It is well to know that 
 their advocacy of religious liberty is now celebrated 
 by Episcopalians, for it shows that they have today 
 a more wholesome attitude toward soul freedom, 
 which was consistently and ably supported from the 
 beginning by Baptists in opposition to odds created 
 chiefly by the Episcopacy. This position of Episco- 
 palians is as far as the east is from the west from 
 that which they held and by every means defended 
 until Episcopalianism was forever routed out of its 
 place as a State Church in America. 
 
 21. Honor where Honor is Due. Baptists and 
 Presbyterians under God brought in America the 
 blessing of religious liberty. It is an accomplish- 
 ment great enough to share. The treatment in this 
 volume is too brief to claim to be with even approxi- 
 mate adequacy a history of the struggle. It does, 
 however, claim to treat fairly and honestly the most 
 significant facts in that struggle. It has been pain- 
 ful to discount claims made by a Presbyterian 
 writer for the primacy of his religious group, a 
 group so justly distinguished in many ways for 
 high service to the commonwealth. But when such 
 a writer purports to speak dispassionately, not only 
 for his own body but for Baptists, and then blithely
 
 92 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 proceeds to shove the Baptists from the stage out 
 into the wings and to put his own group well up in 
 the front center of the stage under the bright lights, 
 where history proves that it does not belong in the 
 Virginia struggle, Baptists have no alternative other 
 than to set forth the facts, both as they relate to 
 themselves and to other religious bodies. We re- 
 joice greatly in all that others did and do for re- 
 ligious liberty. But, in the long persecution suf- 
 fered by Baptists; in the mockings and sneers and 
 indignities heaped upon them by the haughty State 
 Church group, from Massachusetts to Georgia, and 
 particularly in Virginia ; and in the patient humility 
 but undeterred pertinacity and resoluteness with 
 which they endured it all and went about the stu- 
 pendous task of correcting it, Baptists have won a 
 certain idealistic right to claim supremacy in that 
 great struggle. This primacy in devotion and suffer- 
 ing the facts of history abundantly prove to have 
 been equalled by their supremacy in bringing con- 
 crete results in the laws of the land. 
 
 22. A Challenge to Baptists. When the fight for 
 religious liberty began, Baptists were despised. 
 When it was in progress, their consistency and their 
 willingness to suffer for conscience ' sake, drew many 
 new members to their ranks. Not a few of their 
 persecutors became converts and themselves endured 
 persecution. They began to grow with great rapid- 
 ity. From that day to this they have been the most 
 numerous body in the South; in Virginia and the 
 five older States next south and southwest they equal 
 all other religious bodies combined. That growth
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 93 
 
 had its cause not in the favor and plaudits of men, 
 but in persecution endured and in a faithful spirit 
 which despised the shame, if only they might please 
 Jesus. Baptists of today, honored and wealthy and 
 popular and strong in the goods which the world 
 seeks, are in danger of forgetting whence they came. 
 Either we must respond to the challenge of the spir- 
 itual heroism of those pioneer Baptists, who led in 
 the conflict which brought to America the immeas- 
 urable blessings of religious liberty, or prove our- 
 selves unworthy of the success which God has given 
 us. If we are to bless the coming generation with 
 the same extent of service with which our sires by 
 their faithfulness blessed ours, we shall do well to 
 apply to ourselves and our children the moral tonic 
 of a study and understanding of who these sires 
 were and what they did. In their tutelage we, 
 in this day of amiable acquiescence can not 
 but learn that it is better to be pleasers of God than 
 pleasers of men. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Is it proper for a religious body to desire due credit for 
 worthy deeds done? What is the contention of thii 
 chapter ? 
 
 2. Tell of the claims made in a recent publication concerning 
 the Presbyterian participancy in the Virginia conflict for 
 liberty. 
 
 3. Tell of the worth of Presbyterians and their services to 
 society. Can Baptists afford to allow credit for the great- 
 est single service they ever rendered the country to be 
 
 taken from them? 
 
 4. What was the relation of Presbyterians to the State Church 
 in Scotland? What in England after Charles I?
 
 94 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 5. What did the Presbyterians find in Virginia? What peti- 
 tion did the Hanover Presbytery send up in 1774? How 
 many Baptist petitions had been sent up before then? 
 Did the Hanover petition ask for religious liberty? 
 
 6. What is claimed for the Presbyterians in connection with 
 the Stamp Act in 1765? Tell the story of how this Act 
 was passed and rescinded. 
 
 7. Quote Howison concerning Baptist growth in 1774. Give 
 comparative number of Baptists and Presbyterians in 1789. 
 What of the difference of principles which actuated the 
 two groups? What happened to the Stamp Act principle 
 in 1776? 
 
 8. When did the Baptists first ask outright that the Estab- 
 lishment be overthrown? Did any other religious group 
 join them then in their request? Did the petitions cir- 
 culated by Baptists usually bear their name? Why not? 
 What does Dr. Hawks say was the first step taken toward 
 placing preachers of different bodies on an equal footing? 
 
 9. Tell how Baptists were only living up to their principles 
 in these activities. What was their relation to the masses 
 of the people? 
 
 10. Give some prominent non-Baptist testimony to the Baptist 
 primacy in this conflict. 
 
 11. Tell of the first general defeat of the Establishment in 
 1776. 
 
 12. Show how the Establishment made itself ridiculous in 
 trying to hold on to the assessment Tell of the fondness 
 of the Establishment for the assessment What special 
 reservation was inserted in the bill of 1776? 
 
 13. Tell how Baptists were left alone as a Christian body to 
 fight the general assessment. Quote Dr. Robinson on the 
 consistency of the Baptists at that time. 
 
 14. Show to what ridiculous extremes the Establishment went 
 to try to keep the assessment 
 
 15. Tell of the last effort of the Episcopalians to save the 
 assessment in 1785. Quote James Madison on the "line up" 
 at this time. Tell of Hanover Presbytery's joining again 
 in opposition to the general assessment
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 95 
 
 16. Tell of 400 acres of land asked from the State by and 
 given to the Presbyterians. 
 
 17. Tell of the Baptists and the First Amendment to the 
 Constitution. Did any other Christian body move for this 
 amendment ? 
 
 18. Show what the First Amendment secures America from. 
 Who were the only voice of the people at that time? 
 
 19. Give some recent claims of a prominent Episcopal writer. 
 Show the fallacy of his claims concerning Washington, 
 Patrick Henry, and George Mason. 
 
 20. What indisputable facts of history discredit the statements 
 of Dr. McKim? 
 
 21. Tell why Baptists should set forth the facts of that monu- 
 mental conflict What do both sentiment and the facts 
 prove ? 
 
 22. How is this victory a challenge to Baptists? Compare the 
 contempt in which they were held in 1770 with the honor 
 and wealth which are theirs today. What subtle danger 
 does the great change expose them to? Can we perform 
 a more noble service now with our strength and the public 
 acclaim than our spiritual fathers did when they were 
 of all men most despised and contemptuously treated?
 
 With increase of numbers, especially in the populous 
 centers, came a desire among Baptists for improvement in 
 ministerial qualifications, pastoral compensation, and en- 
 larged ideas of missionary operation. The advocacy of such 
 views aroused opposition which manifested itself in a gen- 
 eral anti-missionary spirit which did much to impede the 
 progress of the Baptists in the South. If human agency was 
 objectionable in the equipment of the sacred ministry, it was 
 equally so in the creation of means for disseminating the 
 sacred gospel. Hence, Sunday-schools, Bible societies, and 
 Mission Boards were ranked in the same objectionable cate- 
 gory with ministerial education. It was at this point that the 
 fiercest struggle began on the part of the Baptists of the 
 South, and it may be said that it has been continued to the 
 present time. As local missionaries the Baptists have never 
 been surpassed by any other people in the South. Their 
 ministry has been the most active and self-sacrificing in 
 giving the gospel to the destitute regions; but if the effort 
 was made by the most progressive to urge the claims of the 
 remoter portions of the world, firm opposition would ensue. 
 Planting themselves steadfastly in this position, those of 
 more restricted views waged a steady and relentless war 
 throughout the States of the South against foreign missions. 
 B. F. Riley in History of Baptists in Southern States.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS. 
 
 1. Early Preachers Were Missionary. The prin- 
 ciple of missions may be defined as a passion for lost 
 souls manifesting itself by seeking to win them to 
 salvation through the gospel. Whatever there is 
 more than this in our present definition of missions 
 is a matter of education rather than principle. It is 
 not our desire to idealize the early Baptist preach- 
 ers beyond their due, but rather to estimate them 
 fairly in the light of all of the facts and of the con- 
 ditions and limitations which surrounded them. 
 Considering these, it can be demonstrated that the 
 fire of missionary zeal burned in the hearts of these 
 early preachers to a degree equalled by few and 
 certainly not until this day surpassed by their de- 
 scendants. 
 
 2. They Put First Things First. Their first mis- 
 sionary effort was necessarily to create a constitu- 
 ency, and in this they engaged with matchless zeal. 
 Apostles of soul liberty, they and the people saw and 
 knew little of co-operative religious effort, except 
 such as their enemies used for their undoing. Their 
 jealousy for liberty made them suspicious of large 
 co-operative bodies, lest these should become central- 
 ized and oppressive. There did not exist an educa- 
 tional propaganda sufficient to teach them about the 
 world field. They did not know fully the needs 
 of their own land, but their holy passion sent them 
 forth.
 
 98 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 3. The Spiritual Grandeur of Their Work. Time 
 was to come when their definition of missions would 
 grow till, like the Commission in Matthew and Acts, 
 it would in its extent embrace the whole world. But, 
 surrounded as they were by a new country to be 
 taken for Christ, knowing as they did little about the 
 heathen world and with few opportunities to learn, 
 without organization for work either at home or 
 abroad, it was not surprising that the holy mission- 
 ary zeal of the early preachers turned its whole 
 force toward individual efforts to carry the gospel 
 to the outlying wilderness of the new country. 
 Before we criticise we need to consider that their 
 Baptist definition, of missions had not yet become as 
 comprehensive as the Great Commission. That ut- 
 terance contemplates teaching and intensive devel- 
 opment as well as extensive outreach, but until this 
 day our Baptist eyes have been much holden from 
 perceiving this fact and its stupendous implications 
 as to the missionary enterprise. Their evangelistic 
 program was limited in outreach as compared with 
 that of today, but it suffered nothing by com- 
 parison in devotion, labor, sacrifice, and will- 
 ingness to endure hardship that the lost might be 
 saved. It is a cardinal mistake to view lightly as 
 compared with our day the spiritual bigness of these 
 men and their task. To do so bespeaks ignorance 
 or lack of ability rightly to estimate spiritual values. 
 
 4. An Unsurpassed Evangelism. The Baptist 
 preachers of the early days had a devotion to win- 
 ning the lost and a success in this holy effort prob- 
 ably not surpassed since the days of the Apostles.
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS , 99 
 
 "Without pay, at the price of repeated persecutions, 
 of hard labor, and of the sacrifice of their own inter- 
 ests and comfort, they carried the gospel to the 
 outposts of civilization and in the older settlements 
 maintained it with unabated devotion and remark- 
 able success. Their devotion seemed to be without 
 bounds. The examples given in Chapter II did not 
 more than touch the hem of the garment of the 
 recorded illustrations of their saintly zeal, and there 
 is reason to believe that both the printed record 
 and oral tradition combined scarcely more than 
 suggest the great number of Baptist preachers 
 whose desire to lead men to Christ was intense 
 and whose labors developed Baptists in the South 
 from a handful in 1770 to 467,000 in 1850, a number 
 larger than that of any other religious body. 
 Episcopalians had the State Church, Methodists nes- 
 tled under their sheltering wing, Presbyterians had 
 the advantages of scholarship. These Baptist preach- 
 ers, more or less discountenanced and disliked by 
 all other Christian groups, had only the open Book 
 and a passion for souls and soul liberty. Their 
 winning of the South for soul liberty and the Baptist 
 faith is one of the most thrilling chapters in the 
 history of missionary achievement. To churches, 
 Associations, and other agencies due credit will be 
 given, but to those early preachers, unlearn- 
 ed but not ignorant, unloved by the powers that 
 were, but honored of God and of a great body of 
 spiritual children to these men, too nearly forgotten 
 and too little appreciated in these more favored 
 days of education and co-operative Kingdom effort,
 
 100 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 is due more credit for the missionary passion and 
 effort which has won the South to Christ than is 
 probably due to all other agencies. 
 
 5. Etheridge, Walker, Watkins, and Marshall. 
 Even in the inadequate published records inspiring 
 examples of this pioneer missionary zeal are so 
 plentiful that it is almost impossible to choose be- 
 tween them. There was Thomas Etheridge of North 
 Carolina, who began preaching in Chowan Associa- 
 tion in 1782 and of whom the record of that body 
 in 1810 says: "His soul was so much in the spirit 
 of preaching that often, leaving his family and all 
 behind, he would start right off for six or seven 
 weeks together, preaching often three times a day. 
 He was frequently attacked in the pulpit and once 
 his life was nearly endangered under the hands of 
 the old-church men. From these he underwent great 
 and severe trials. In Princess Anne County, Vir- 
 ginia, he was attacked by a mob, who threatened to 
 pull him down from the trunk of a tree he was using 
 as a pulpit and beat him for the offense of being a 
 Baptist preacher." There was Jeremiah Walker of 
 Virginia, of whom it was said: "He was almost 
 incessantly engaged in preaching the gospel. In a 
 few years, aided principally by young preachers of 
 his own training, he planted between twenty and 
 thirty churches south of the James River. In these 
 a number of gifted characters afterwards became 
 preachers, all directly or indirectly through his ef- 
 forts." There was Benjamin Watkins of Virginia, 
 of whom it was written by Taylor: "It was his 
 ambition to occupy the most destitute portions of the
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 101 
 
 Lord's vineyard. He annually performed tours 
 through five counties. His yearly visits were antici- 
 pated with unfeigned joy." There was Daniel Mar- 
 shall, who founded the first Baptist church in Geor- 
 gia, and of whom Dr. Newman says: "He was in- 
 stant in season and out of season. At musters or 
 races, in the open fields, at the market-place, in 
 the army or in the home, he was always ready to 
 proclaim salvation through a crucified Redeemer, and 
 multitudes heard and heeded his words." Of the 
 work of such men in Georgia the elder P. H. Mell 
 wrote: "They revolutionized religious opinions 
 over all the regions in which they operated, brought 
 multitudes to Christ, and planted vigorous churches 
 in every neighborhood in the State affording suffi- 
 cient population, and laid broad and deep the foun- 
 dations of Georgia as a Baptist State." The same 
 testimony would apply with equal force to nearly 
 every State in the South. 
 
 6. The Churches and Missions. Next to the 
 preachers the churches became active in missionary 
 work. Churches formed and nourished by such 
 preachers could not be indifferent to sending the 
 gospel to others. Two notable examples of mis- 
 sionary spirit in the early churches were the Old 
 First Church of Charleston, South Carolina,^ and 
 Sandy Creek Church in North Carolina. Early in 
 the eighteenth century the Charleston church began 
 to establish other churches in South and North Caro- 
 lina, and in 1755 it led the Charleston Association 
 to the first formal missionary work by an Associa- 
 tion in the South, and the first in America, except a
 
 102 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 similar move by the Philadephia Association in 
 the same year. The missionaries sent over by 
 the English Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts, reported back, "Every- 
 where we go the Baptists are before us." 
 
 7. Sandy Creek. A. L. Vail in The Morning Hour 
 of American Baptist Missions says that the most 
 remarkable early American Baptist church in its 
 missionary operations was Sandy Creek Church in 
 North Carolina. Its almost incredible expansion 
 gathered around the stalwart Shubal Stearns, with 
 whom Daniel Marshall was closely associated. 
 Preachers multiplied in Sandy Creek who spread 
 the glad tidings near and far, but all radiated from 
 the church and gathered their converts to it. The 
 church in seventeen years spread her branches south 
 as far as Georgia, eastward to the sea, and north- 
 ward to the Potomac. In seventeen years it became 
 the mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother of 
 forty-two churches, from which sprang one hundred 
 and twenty-five ministers. 
 
 8. The Association. The first purpose of the 
 early Baptist Associations was not missions, but 
 union and fellowship. The Charleston at its organi- 
 zation in 1751 declared its object to be the promo- 
 tion of the Redeemer's Kingdom by the maintenance 
 of love and fellowship and by consultations for the 
 peace and welfare of the churches. Sandy Creek 
 Association, formed in 1758 at the instance of the 
 Sandy Creek Church, was with the purpose of fur- 
 thering the designs of that mother church and its 
 children, and these were both fellowship and evan-
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 103 
 
 gelization. These were the two oldest Associations 
 in the South, and may be taken as typical of the 
 purposes of these earliest Baptist co-operative bodies, 
 except that the idea of fellowship and consultation 
 in these two budded into service and missions more 
 rapidly than they did in most of the Associations 
 which were formed during the last half of the eigh- 
 teenth and the early years of the nineteenth cen- 
 turies. 
 
 9. First Committal to Co-operative Missions. 
 Great and almost inconceivable as the evangelistic 
 missionary service of the pioneer preachers had been 
 in the South, until now there was very little evideue 
 that they were supported by others in their wilder- 
 ness gospel tours. Even when their churches had 
 released them for these tours, it had been perhaps 
 more because the preacher was serving the church 
 mostly at his own charges, than because they 
 wished to support him when they let him go. 
 But many of the churches unquestionably did enter 
 heartily into the spirit of this service, and thus a 
 beginning was made for their support later of mis- 
 sionaries on the field. The old Charleston Assoeia* 
 tion led the way in 1755 in a committal of its body 
 to the support of missions. ' ' Taking into considera- 
 tion the destitute condition of many places in the 
 interior settlements of this and the neighboring 
 provinces," writes Wood Furman in his book, 
 Charleston Association, "the body recommended 
 to the churches to make contributions for the sup- 
 port of a missionary to itinerate in those parts."
 
 104 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 This was done. Rev. John Gano was secured and his 
 work was crowned with large success. 
 
 10. A Far-Reaching Resolution. Simple as was 
 the wording of the Charleston resolution, it not only 
 started the first co-operative missionary effort by a 
 Baptist body in the South, but had in it the seeds 
 of our whole Southern Baptist method of missionary 
 organization today, as distinguished from the meth- 
 od which has long been in vogue among the Bap- 
 tists of the North. Just why they did it there is 
 not space to conjecture, but the Northern brethren 
 formed Mission Societies distinct from the Associa- 
 tions and others than Baptists were eligible to mem- 
 bership. The Southern idea, started by the Char- 
 leston Association, was that missions was the work 
 of the churches and must be directed by them, and 
 that the Association as their co-operative vehicle was 
 the proper agency through which their effort should 
 head up and be administered. This same principle, 
 expanded one or two steps further to meet the needs 
 of the larger participation of our whole body, is that 
 which underlies, conditions, and directs our entire 
 Southern Baptist missionary program today. 
 
 11. Long Years of Germination. The example of 
 organized missionary effort thus given, was not rap- 
 idly followed by other Associations. In fact rela- 
 tively few Associations were formed until about fifty 
 years later. When they were organized, the ideas 
 of fellowship and internal welfare were all most of 
 them had in mind. This idea embraced much preach- 
 ing. Sometimes as many as six sermons would be 
 delivered by different ministers in the course of a
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 105 
 
 single day. Usually these were distinctly evangel- 
 istic, sometimes they were doctrinal, and church 
 order engaged much attention. It may be said of 
 nearly all the early Associations that they were mis- 
 sionary in the limited sense of being evangelistic. 
 About the close of the second decade of the nine- 
 teenth century, the idea of co-operative, money-sup- 
 ported missions began to press itself with force upon 
 the Associations in the South. 
 
 12. Before the Warfare. During this period there 
 were some beginnings in co-operative missions 
 among Baptists in Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In 
 1806 Goshen Association, Virginia, expressed its 
 approbation of mission work among the Indians, 
 "provided any practicable plan could be invented." 
 In 1809 Chowan Association, North Carolina, initia- 
 ted a "Committee of Correspondence" between As- 
 sociations in the State, which the Chowan minute 
 of 1811 says became missionary in purpose. In 1815 
 Sandy Creek Association sent two messengers and 
 two dollars to this General Committee meeting, and 
 in 1818 this Association adopted a resolution rec- 
 ommending that the churches support Foreign and 
 Domestic Missions. In South Carolina the mission 
 banner raised by the Charleston Association was 
 never taken down, nor was there any noisy conflict 
 waged around it, though perhaps intensive missions 
 in the guise of ministerial education received more 
 attention up until the formation of the Triennial 
 Convention than evangelistic missions received. 
 Some mission work was done among the
 
 106 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Catawba Indians near the line between South and 
 North Carolina. The Savannah River Association, 
 now of South Carolina but then composed of Georgia 
 and South Carolina churches near Savannah, in 1813 
 sent out to the churches a communication calling 
 on them to support Home and Foreign Missions. 
 A month later the Savannah Baptist Society for 
 Foreign Missions issued a circular letter and the 
 Georgia Association in 1814 approved it and pledged 
 itself to support Foreign Mission work. As early 
 as 1801 the Georgia Association had shown interest 
 in Indian missions, but had not actually entered 
 upon the work. 
 
 13. Kentucky and Tennessee. Early Baptists in 
 Kentucky and Tennessee had similar experiences in 
 missionary beginnings, with the difference that the 
 denomination developed more rapidly in Kentucky 
 in the earliest days and played the helpful part of 
 big brother to the beginners in Tennessee. In both 
 States individual missionary evangelism prospered 
 wonderfully. In both this was followed by co-opera- 
 tive effort through the Associations and in both there 
 was to break out about 1816 probably the most 
 violent and sustained anti-mission agitation which 
 was experienced by any of the States, ex- 
 cept perhaps Alabama. In 1813 Elkhorn Asso- 
 ciation, Kentucky, appropriated about $65 to send 
 Revs. John and James Sutton to do mission work 
 in Tennessee. About twelve years before that date 
 the Association had sent a missionary to labor among 
 the Indians in the West. Long Run, Tate's Creek, 
 and South Kentucky Associations each had its mis-
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 107 
 
 sionaries working in territory beyond its own bor- 
 ders. Dr. D. Dowden in Jubilee Volume of Ken- 
 tucky Baptists declares that "the early Baptists of 
 Kentucky were missionary to the core," and Dr. 
 J. H. Spencer declares that "an anti-missionary 
 Baptist was unknown in Kentucky previous to 
 1815." Of Tennessee Eiley says: "The Baptist 
 churches of that State were among the first warmly 
 to espouse the cause of missions in foreign parts, 
 but this was followed by a most violent reaction. ' ' 
 
 14. Day of Organization to Dawn. It will be ob- 
 served that up until now the Baptist on-going in the 
 South in its impact on society had not only been 
 democratic, but prevailingly individualistic. Our 
 fathers loved liberty so well that they honestly fear- 
 ed organization. Not a few fought against the 
 organization of Associations. Many of them fought 
 co-operative missions in an honest and serious fear 
 that it meant centralization. We of today have 
 learned through co-operation to work together 
 without centralization or a religious aristocracy. 
 But if we are wise we will love democracy as much 
 as they did, and if we are modest we will respect 
 their fears. Those very fears have done an un- 
 measured amount to save us from the evils 
 which they thought threatened Zion. The pre-or- 
 ganization day was getting ready to make its great 
 grapple with the day of organization and co-opera- 
 tion. It was to precipitate a fight to the finish. But 
 that battle of giants will require a chapter of its 
 own.
 
 108 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. Give a definition of the principle of missions. Were the 
 early Baptist preachers missionary in spirit? 
 
 2. What turn did this missionary spirit take? 
 
 3. Tell of their environment and lack of knowledge of needs 
 farther away. Does our present definition of missions 
 adequately represent the Great Commission? 
 
 4. What of their evangelism? How did they prove their 
 zeal ? What caused the great Baptist growth between 1770 
 and 1850? Give comparative advantages of Baptists and 
 other early Christian bodies. 
 
 5. Give instances of the holy zeal of the pioneer Baptist 
 preachers. What did the elder P. H. Mell say of them? 
 
 6. Describe how the preachers led the churches into an 
 interest in missions. When was the first missionary work 
 undertaken by an Association? What did the workers of 
 an English Mission Society say of the Baptists in Carolina ? 
 
 7. Tell of the missionary work of Sandy Creek Church. 
 
 8. What was the prime organizing force in the early Asso- 
 ciations? Did this tend toward missions? 
 
 9. To what extent were the early preachers supported by 
 their churches on their missionary tours? What effect did 
 the mission work of the preachers have on the churches? 
 Tell of the Charleston Association's recommendation about 
 missions in 1755. 
 
 10. Tell of the wonderful indirect result of the Charleston 
 resolution. Show the difference of the early integrating 
 principles of Southern and Northern Baptists for mission 
 service. 
 
 11. Did the idea of co-operative mission work spread rapidly 
 in the Associations? Describe the meeting of an early 
 Association. 
 
 12. Tell of movements toward mission work in various As- 
 sociations in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. 
 
 13. Tell of the early missionary enthusiasm in Kentucky and 
 Tennessee.
 
 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 109 
 
 14. What relation had the missionary to the coming of co- 
 operative organizations? Did these come without oppo- 
 sition ?
 
 I have never been one, and God forbid I should be one, 
 to disparage our Baptist fathers. It is a species of Pharisa- 
 ism that thanks God for our superiority to the saints who 
 have gone to glory, and which tells with complacency how 
 much greater our achievements have been than theirs. We 
 can rightly thank God for the grace given unto us, whereby 
 we have been able to do what we have done, and we confess 
 not only our own short comings, but those of our fathers. 
 When Daniel made his great confession in that beautiful 
 prayer of his, he said: "We and our fathers have sinned." 
 Only after we have confessed our own sins may we confess 
 the sins of our fathers. It is a more wholesome exercise of 
 mind and heart to consider the nobleness of the sainted 
 dead, and how we can most faithfully carry out the trust 
 they have committed to us under God. 
 
 Let us not harshly blame our fathers because no mission- 
 aries went out from among them to the heathen. Looking 
 over the world they saw no land unpolluted by the persecu- 
 tion of their brethren, no river unstained by their martyrs' 
 blood; they remembered that through the centuries it had 
 required their utmost exertions to keep their own people 
 supplied with preaching, as they trembled in the catacombs 
 of Rome, or lay in the forest among wild beasts, kinder than 
 their fellowmen; when crossing the ocean to a land where 
 freedom reigned in the boastful words of its people, they 
 found to their sorrow no freedom for them. Those who 
 claimed freedom for themselves drove Baptists, maimed, 
 beaten, and bleeding, into the wilderness. Think you a 
 government which imprisoned John Bunyan in Bedford jail, 
 which whipped Obadiah Holmes on Boston Commons, and 
 incarcerated James Ireland in Culpepper, Va., would have 
 allowed Baptists to organize to send the gospel to the 
 heathen? Let us remember there was less than a century 
 from the cessation of persecution, so that Baptist missionary 
 organizations became possible, till Gary arose. When I think 
 of all that Baptists have suffered, I do not wonder that 
 when for the first time in seventeen hundred years the woman 
 in the wilderness found a resting place for her weary feet, 
 and gathering her true-hearted sons about her with none 
 to molest or make them afraid, she was content simply to 
 rest, "the world forgetting, by the world forgotten." T. T. 
 Eaton, D.D., before Southern Baptist Convention, 1893.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CONFLICT OF MISSIONS AND 
 ANTI-MISSIONS. 
 
 1. An Instructive Story. The story of the war- 
 fare of missions and anti-missions among Baptists is 
 a human document of intensely fascinating interest. 
 Throughout it has been a conflict of sure-enough 
 people, not of the artificial people who trouble 
 first the brain of the novelist and next that of his 
 reader. It has been a fight between good people, 
 the Lord's people. Earnest exponents of missions 
 may look askance at some of the anti-mission cham- 
 pions. The sensitive may even feel hurt at the lurid 
 statements of some of the spokesmen for religious 
 do-nothingism. But one's sense of humor should 
 save him. However well we may be satisfied that 
 the often shrewd anti-mission protagonist is dishon- 
 est or wilfully ignorant, we should remember that 
 the people who follow him are neither dishonest 
 nor wilfully ignorant, nor is he always so. They are 
 good people, but ignorant about the things of the 
 Kingdom. They are not necessarily ignorant about 
 other things, but disobedient to the Scripture which 
 requires us to be simple concerning the things of 
 the flesh and wise concerning the things of the 
 Spirit. They are not more ignorant about the things 
 of the Kingdom than many of us would be if we 
 had not enjoyed better opportunities.
 
 112 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 2. The Most Serious Fact about Anti-Missions. 
 The most serious fact about the work of the anti-mis- 
 sion guerrillas of today is not that they should speak 
 things which are untrue in order to prejudice un- 
 taught Baptists. The serious point is that we, who 
 believe in missions and who to some extent support 
 missions, have not caught a vision of the obligation 
 which rests upon us so to instruct our untaught 
 brother that he shall not stumble in the way when 
 some one presents to him a preachment which is at 
 once in consonance with prejudice and covetousness 
 and against the doctrine of co-operative missionary 
 endeavor. This failure shows an anti-missionary 
 spirit among the supporters of missions, who have 
 had opportunities to know which Hardshell brethren 
 have not had. If we so leave the bars of missionary 
 safety down as to invite any stray opponent of prog- 
 ress to come in and trample down the tender crop, 
 what right have we to expect that some wayward 
 champion will not walk in? Of course he will. Let 
 no hands of dismay and astonishment be held up; 
 rather let there be bending of knees before God in 
 humble confession that we have not loved our 
 brother who has not enjoyed the opportunities we 
 have enjoyed, sufficiently to use as a means of help- 
 ing him those organizations, which he foolishly fears, 
 "teaching him to observe all things whatsoever our 
 Lord has commanded." God forgive us if in our 
 none-too-warm devotion to missions, we have not had 
 the heart to love our less fortunate brother to the 
 point of helping him which is missions ! 
 
 3. The Years of the Warfare. The battle of
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 113 
 
 missions against anti-missions was fought and the 
 victory won by the missionary forces in the period 
 between 1816 and, let us say 1845, because it gives 
 us a fine milestone in the setting up then of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention, though the active con- 
 flict ended a few years earlier. The day was won 
 by the minority because God was on the side 
 of the minority, on the side of co-operation and of 
 faith in one's brethren, on the side of love for men 
 to the point of sending the gospel to them, on the 
 side of fellowship in service. The anti-mission 
 champion, especially in the earlier days of the con- 
 test, did not know he was setting himself against 
 all these things, but he was. He was usually a real 
 Christian, but he was ignorant of what were God's 
 great purposes for his people. When the Southern 
 Baptist Convention was organized in 1845, there was 
 in effect set up for our spiritual body throughout 
 Dixieland a stone of witness between this people and 
 God, that they would follow him in all the ways 
 of service and world-winning into which he should 
 lead them. Already the battle had been won in 
 detail by the Baptist regiments in each of the older 
 States. It was they who bore the brunt of the con- 
 flict. But they came down to Augusta, Georgia, in 
 1845, and unitedly proclaimed a day of Baptists for 
 the Kingdom and of the Kingdom for Baptists. Let 
 us observantly go down into the aforetime val- 
 leys where was waged the warfare of the mighty 
 over missions and anti-missions, education and anti- 
 education, and organization and anti-organization.
 
 114 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 In the conflict these three objects regularly fared 
 together. 
 
 4. Causes of the Battle. The occasion of the 
 lining up of pro- and anti-mission parties in the 
 South was the new emphasis which came to be given 
 particularly to Foreign Missions, through the con- 
 version of Judson to Baptist views and the sub- 
 sequent activities in the South of the Triennial Con- 
 vention's agents to arouse interest in Foreign Mis- 
 sions, first among whom was Luther Rice. The 
 causes of the opposition lay deeper. Chief among 
 these were extreme jealousy for democracy and hy- 
 per-Calvinism. In addition to this the provincialism 
 of the people and the fact that the leading ex- 
 ponents of the new ideas were from the outside 
 or of the more distinguished local men, who often 
 had little intimate association with the rank and 
 file of the people, did much to stiffen the opposition. 
 
 5. The "Aristocracy." It is inevitable that new 
 ideas shall excite opposition among the masses of 
 the people until they shall see those ideas embodied 
 and set forth by their own known and trusted 
 leaders, rather than by some celebrated stranger, 
 whom they know only through the big address which 
 he made on some signal occasion at one of their 
 assembles. As a matter of fact, such opposition at- 
 tends the promulgation of new ideas among our 
 churches even today, when the means of knowledge 
 are many times greater. With the disadvantage of 
 having strangers as its principal sponsors, the For- 
 eign Mission propaganda had also that of being 
 to the people an exceedingly far-off thing, almost
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 115 
 
 an abstraction. There were almost no religious 
 papers and almost no mail facilities, a considerable 
 portion of the church members could not read or 
 write. It would have been a remarkable thing if 
 opposition had not developed. It is gratifying that 
 the new and larger idea was received in so many 
 places into good soil, which brought forth fruitfully. 
 It was not really strange that men who rejoiced in 
 salvation and in seeing others saved and were even 
 zealous in spreading the good news, should find 
 themselves in doubt about the new move to avan- 
 gelize heathen nations, of which many of them had 
 never even heard. They were so busy trying to sup- 
 ply the abounding local needs, that this blessed pre- 
 occupation in part insulated them from the percep- 
 tion of other needs. In order to do justice to these 
 early Baptists we must put ourselves in their places. 
 If we do this, we will not feel like criticising them, 
 though we may find it difficult to extend a like char- 
 ity to some of the rabid men who during a later 
 period became leaders of the anti-mission idea. 
 
 6. Jealousy for Democracy. Perhaps the idea 
 which more nearly obsessed our Baptist fathers than 
 anything else was Democracy. Baptists are today 
 jealous of democracy and none too much so. But 
 we have learned much which our fathers did not 
 and could not know about how democracy may co- 
 operate through organizations and yet safeguard it- 
 self. Those early Baptists had no demonstration 
 that there may be preservation of democracy and at 
 the same time an increase of fraternity and effi- 
 ciency in co-operative organization. But they had
 
 116 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 had never-to-be-forgotten experiences of how secu- 
 lar and ecclesiastical organizations may become op- 
 presive and iniquitous. Therefore their jealousy. 
 We honor them for it. It may be well enough to 
 smile at a Baptist church now which shies at so 
 simple a matter as joining a District Association, lest 
 that body should interfere with its autonomy, but 
 it was not a smiling matter one hundred years ago. 
 True, the Associations had not been found guilty, 
 but neither had they yet to the satisfaction of 
 those pioneer individualists proven their innocence. 
 7. Associations and Democracy. For the first 
 century after the old Charleston Association was 
 formed, perhaps there was no one idea which was 
 more often elucidated in connection with the forma- 
 tion of Baptist Associations than that they did not 
 in any way interfere with the autonomy of the local 
 churches. Not only so; the idea was everywhere 
 nailed down through resolutions or in the organic 
 law. One of the first acts of the Charleston Asso- 
 ciation at its first meeting was to assert the inde- 
 pendency of the churches and to announce the re- 
 strictions of its own powers to counsel and advice. 
 Virginia Baptist churches were perhaps even more 
 scrupulous than others on this point and Semple 
 shows how jealousy lest the Associations should go 
 beyond their advisory and fraternal functions, led to 
 repeated disavowals on the part of those bodies. 
 This same zeal for democracy made many of the 
 Associations hesitate at a later date to join the State 
 Convention or General Association. In Kentucky it 
 defeated the first State organization. In Alabama
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 117 
 
 it kept the infant State body in anxiety and weak- 
 ness to such an extent that after ten years, at the 
 1833 meeting, it had only four delegates. In Ten- 
 nessee and Maryland it retarded the general organi- 
 zation, and in North and South Carolina and Vir- 
 ginia for a period it limited the popularity and pow- 
 er of the State body. 
 
 8. Democracy and Missions. These pioneer 
 preachers of the South had done an itinerant mis- 
 sionary work never surpassed in history. The 
 churches had gradually come to participate in their 
 work and to support the workers. Even the prin- 
 ciple of co-operative organization for missions 
 through various Associations was in effective opera- 
 tion, notwithstanding an extreme concern for 
 church independence. This was fine progress. Then 
 came Judson. This resulted in an appeal through- 
 out the South for the Associations to join in the co- 
 operative support of missions in India. It 
 was like telling a man who has just learned 
 to spell "baker" that he must at once begin 
 to spell only words of length of "incompre- 
 hensibility." It was strong doctrine. We ad- 
 mire the faith of those early preachers in their 
 hearty advocacy, but we may be pardoned if we 
 question the tact and statesmanship some of them 
 showed before the conflict was over. In Kentucky, 
 for instance, instead of patient dealing with a con- 
 stituency which was really taking hold of evangel- 
 ism, of which Foreign Missions is only an extension, 
 with more rapidity than any other in the South, 
 some of the enthusiasts formed Mission Societies
 
 118 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 which were independent of the churches. This ap- 
 pears to have been the first thing which started the 
 anti-mission revulsion in Kentucky. 
 
 9. Good Men Feared Centralization. As good and 
 great a preacher as John Leland, himself for years 
 a missionary of holy fervor and unsparing labors 
 in Virginia, and a man of undoubted wisdom, looked 
 with disfavor upon the proposed organizations for 
 Foreign Missions, lest they should result in a fatal 
 centralization. He declined to itinerate under the 
 support of a Baptist Missionary Society in Massa- 
 chusetts, and in 1826 wrote a friend: "What the 
 new order of missionary friends and exertions will 
 do, I cannot say; whether there is goodness enough 
 in men to be pampered without growing indolent 
 and haughty is a question. But the captive Israelites 
 who lived on pulse were fresher, fatter, and ten times 
 better in counsel than the vulgar bred priests in 
 the realm of Babylon who lived on a royal portion 
 of meat and wine." There were few nobler frontier 
 missionaries than John Taylor of Kentucky. He 
 had preached the gospel from house to house, county 
 to county and State to State, and yet the new 
 Mission Societies frightened John Taylor. Dr. Spen- 
 cer quotes him as saying: "I consider these great 
 men are verging close on an aristocracy, with an 
 object to sap the foundation of Baptist republican 
 government." Down in Alabama, Rev. "Club Ax" 
 Davis, whose nick-name was made by himself, was a 
 missionary itinerant who never spared himself or 
 the frontier sinner and through whom many souls 
 were brought to Christ, but he was at the same time
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 119 
 
 uncompromising in his opposition to co-operative 
 missionary effort. There were such men in every 
 State. It is unfortunate that we have not preserved 
 the records of more of them. They are not to be 
 confounded with men who at a later time became 
 anti-mission champions, when they thought it a good 
 political move to do so. 
 
 10. Hyper-Calvinism. Hyper-Calvinism led some 
 Baptists to their early opposition to missions. The 
 Methodists were everywhere preaching salvation by 
 works. The tendency was to drive Baptists far to- 
 ward the other extreme of predestination. Not a 
 few of the fathers considered it an interference with 
 the divine prerogative to do so unheard of a thing 
 as to send the gospel to heathen nations. Small 
 wonder. So did the big English preacher who 
 sought to squelch "William Carey. The Saluda As- 
 sociation was meeting at Flat Rock Church, Ander- 
 son County, South Carolina, in 1836. The church 
 letters and "Letters of Correspondence" with other 
 Associations were at last disposed of, as were also 
 the various and sundry questions of doctrine and 
 polity, sent up from the churches for early Associa- 
 tions to try their teeth on. Came Sunday morning, 
 the first of August, the great day of the feast, with 
 its large throng scattered down through the grove, 
 across the "big road" and on the big rock, to the 
 branch where under the dense forest canopy a cool 
 spring bubbled up to slake the pioneer Baptist 
 thirst. At the stand Rev. Sanford Vandiver preach- 
 ed the "charity sermon." In it he appealed for 
 money to help publish Judson's translation of the
 
 120 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Burmese Bible. While lie was speaking with elo- 
 quence and inspiration, a tall, gangling anti-mission- 
 ary preacher was seen to leave his seat up on the 
 stand with the dozen or more other preachers, pit 
 on his hat, gather up and toss across his arm his 
 saddle-bags and start high-stepping toward the for- 
 est side, within which his horse was tethered. In 
 the outskirts of the listening throng a brother hailed 
 him: "Why, Brother Blank, what in the world is 
 the matter?" "Matter!" replied the stalwart man 
 of God. "Just listen at Sanford; preaching salva- 
 tion to the Gentiles. I'll never again listen to any 
 such a preacher." The writer was born in Saluda 
 Association, within a few miles of Flat Rock Church, 
 which he often attended in his childhood. The 
 churches of Saluda Association now give more to 
 missions than those of any other Association in South 
 Carolina ! 
 
 11. When Fighting Was "Good." Fighting is 
 always an evidence of human sin and infirmity. But 
 there come times when good men ought to and must 
 fight. Of the Baptists at this period Dr. B. F. Riley 
 says: "Their boldly aggressive spirit arose, first, 
 from mistaking the spirit of resistance which Vir- 
 ginia Baptists had shown toward the State Church. 
 They held on to the ginger without the spirit, and 
 applied the ginger everywhere. Second, they felt 
 that they were right, and where aggravated by con- 
 stant attacks from other religious protagonists, espe- 
 cially Methodists, who had as much of the disputa- 
 tious spirit of pioneer conditions as the Baptists 
 had." Beginning before the end of the second
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 121 
 
 decade of the last century and smouldering into an 
 open flame in some places by 1825 and at others 
 during the next ten to fifteen years, the 
 mission and anti-mission parties had a conflict which 
 was not without much bitterness and prejudice. The 
 prejudice was mainly among the anti-missionaries 
 and the bitterness almost entirely so. But it should 
 be said that the advocates of missions were not 
 perfect before the Lord in all the things which they 
 did. They were right on the great issue of missions 
 and they often showed a commendable moderation 
 in dealing with opponents who were glaringly de- 
 ficient in moderation. But from the vantage of the 
 present it seems that if they had had more of pa- 
 tience and long-suffering, more appreciation of the 
 limitations and lack of instruction which led the 
 anti-missionaries into their errors, they could have 
 won many of them who were driven into open op- 
 position. If they were lacking here, they were hardly 
 more so than we are now. But they should 
 not have been surprised that so large a body of 
 men and women, with their restricted and contracted 
 ideas, and whose lives were almost entirely pioneer 
 and local, could not be brought over night to go 
 further forward in missionary work than the whole 
 body had advanced within fifty years, though it had 
 made marvelous progress within that time. 
 
 12. The "Club- Ax" Anti-Missionaries. In gen- 
 eral the methods of the anti-missionary preachers 
 would justify giving their class the cognomen which 
 Davis of Alabama had given himself. When most 
 of these men advanced to the fray, it was with utter
 
 122 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 abandon and with wild-cat catch-as-catch-can meth- 
 ods. In a day of individualism and wildwoods ora- 
 tory, these doughty champions were in their glory. 
 On their side they had the advantage of the general 
 ignorance about missions and the natural prejudices 
 of the people. With a shrewdness worthy of a bet- 
 ter cause, they caricatured their antagonists. Dr. 
 B. F. Riley, who in History of Baptists in the 
 South and elsewhere has given us the best extant 
 story of the conflict, quotes one of these champions 
 as follows: ''Do not," vociferated he to his audi- 
 ence, "do not forget the enemy [the missionaries] ; 
 bear them in mind ; the howling, destructive wolves, 
 the ravenous dogs and the filthy, and their numerous 
 whelps. By a minute observation and the consulta- 
 tion of the sacred, never-failing, descriptive chart, 
 even their physiognomy in dress, mien and carriage, 
 and many other indented, indelible, descriptive 
 marks, too tedious at present to mention. The wolf- 
 ish smell is enough to alarm, to create suspicion, and 
 to ascertain. The dogs' teeth are noted, and the 
 wolves for their peculiar and distinct howl," etc. 
 etc., etc., etc. Such a fellow can go on as long as 
 any one remains to hear him bellow. 
 
 13. Alexander Campbell. Baptists in the South 
 had received great aid from George Whitfield, who 
 was a Presbyterian. They now received great in- 
 jury from Alexander Campbell, who had been a 
 Presbyterian, but who left them to make a new cult 
 of his own. He entered into the Baptist situation 
 about 1823. If Mr. Campbell had organized his cult 
 with the specific purpose of catching the backward
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 123 
 
 Baptists of that day, he could scarcely have done it 
 better. They believed in Bible baptism as an act 
 of obedience. Mr. Campbell went further; baptism 
 was essential to salvation. They had a penchant for 
 contention over Scripture teaching; Mr. Campbell 
 more so. They were jealous for democracy; Mr. 
 Campbell became more jealous, showing how mis- 
 sion Societies, Boards, etc., would enslave both them 
 and their children. They held the Bible to be the 
 only rule of faith; Mr. Campbell conjured up new 
 and spectacular ways to convince them that he was 
 really the only original, full-length believer in this 
 teaching. The great untaught majority of them did 
 not believe in missions ; they were right, averred Mr. 
 Campbell. He believed in Bible missions, but not So- 
 ciety missions. The money was used, he declared, to 
 pamper indulgent and lazy preachers. He bethought 
 himself that he would have to find an answer to the 
 implications of the Bible record of Paul's mission 
 work. So he said Paul had the gift of performing 
 miracles, and there was no record in the Bible of 
 mission work without the power of miracles. We 
 have not the power of miracles, so good-bye missions. 
 14. The Setback Which Followed. We are not 
 here concerned about the amazing fact that quite a 
 large and respected religious body in America had 
 its origin from such contentions as are indicated in 
 the preceding paragraph. But these contentions, 
 maintained with astuteness, were one of the strong- 
 est deterrents to the growth of missions among 
 Southern Baptists. Kentucky Baptists were torn 
 and lacerated by Campbell's false views. Anti-mis-
 
 124 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 sion views spread like fire before wind. It was years, 
 and only after sloughing off the most extreme anti- 
 mission wing, before Kentucky Baptists again moved 
 forward in their constructive program. The Camp- 
 bellism infection also wrought sad havoc in Tennes- 
 see and Alabama. In lesser degree it gave a setback 
 to mission progress in all the other Southern States. 
 
 15. Missions Won. After about 1840 the anti- 
 mission agitation was no longer able to do any great 
 harm to the Baptist organizations, which had turned 
 their faces toward service. Many of the men who 
 had formerly opposed organized co-operation to save 
 men, were led to see the error of their way. The 
 leadership of the anti-mission forces was henceforth 
 to be only of good men who were sadly deficient 
 in knowledge, and of a few unscrupulous men who 
 were not ignorant. The day of intercommunication 
 and co-operation was gradually encroaching on the 
 preserves of localism and individualism. The coun- 
 try was moving forward and the Baptists were well 
 up with the vanguard, demonstrating that a religious 
 democracy can develop in efficiency, notwithstand- 
 ing all the ignorance and suspicion which it has 
 to enlighten or overcome. 
 
 16. A Plea for Our Belated Brethren. There are 
 perhaps in 1915 200,000 Baptists in the South who, 
 under the names of Primitive, Hardshell or Free 
 Will Baptists, are frankly opposed to missions. Be- 
 sides these there are at least several hundred 
 churches counted in our Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion statistics, which are really anti-missionary in 
 belief! The question is here raised if we have not
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 125 
 
 an obligation to the belated brethren, to win them 
 to larger and truer views. We can win them, if we 
 will show that we love them and desire to help them. 
 Practically there is not enough difference between 
 us and them to justify us in complacency. They 
 say they do not believe in missions, and consistently 
 give nothing to missions. We say we do believe in 
 missions, but after all these years of training, we 
 are in the Southern Convention averaging about 
 sixty cents per member for all kinds of missions. 
 The practical difference between us and the Hard- 
 shell brother is only a difference of five cents per 
 month per member! Of immeasurable worth are 
 our vast organizations and our churches committed in 
 principle and doctrine to missions, but the smallness 
 of our actual average individual gifts may well 
 make us modest. There is something about the little 
 anti-mission church in the mountain cove or out 
 in the piney woods that ought particularly to draw 
 our love and helpfulness. They and we hold many 
 precious beliefs together and we do not differ as 
 much as we ought on the chief points in which 
 we do differ. 
 
 17. How He Won Them. Anti-mission churches 
 have often been won by men who have had the tact 
 and the consecrated good sense to go about it. Dr. 
 T. M. Bailey, veteran ex-State Secretary, now of 
 Greenville, South Carolina, won many such churches 
 in his secretarial service in Alabama and South 
 Carolina, and so have other State Secretaries. 
 Two years ago, while he was on a trip through the 
 Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Dr. Albert
 
 126 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 E. Brown, Superintendent of Mountain Mission 
 Schools of the Home Mission Board, found that a 
 Hardshell Baptist church was holding a series of 
 services in a school house. Superintendent Brown 
 decided to attend the meeting. Preaching was in 
 progress when he entered the room and he took a 
 seat near the rear of the building. At once he dis- 
 covered that his presence had aroused much interest 
 among the worshippers. They thought he was a 
 Presbyterian missionary. The preacher exhorted 
 long and earnestly. When he finished, he called 
 upon the senior pastor to "follow," in the old-time 
 way. The elder preacher proceeded to improve the 
 occasion by making certain adroit doctrinal swipes 
 for the edification of the supposed Presbyterian 
 preacher. After finishing his exhortation, the old 
 man led the service toward its close by saying : "If 
 all minds are clear, we will be dismissed." Where- 
 upon Dr. Brown arose and said: "Brother, all 
 minds are not clear, and if you have no objection 
 I would like to make a statement." The elder re- 
 plied: "I don't know as I have any objections." 
 Brother Brown walked to the platform, told them 
 his name, and where he lived, and continued: 
 "Brethren, I am a Baptist and you are Baptists. 
 You are therefore my folks. We may not see alike 
 on all matters, nevertheless, being a Baptist, I am 
 your brother. Moreover, I am a mountaineer and 
 you are mountaineers and that makes us still closer 
 kin." Then he proceeded to tell them that he was 
 building schools for mountain boys and girls. Their 
 surprise was great and they were pleased. The old
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 127 
 
 pastor asked Dr. Brown to preach for them that 
 afternoon and he consented. 
 
 18. "He Got It out of the Book." That after- 
 noon Dr. Brown preached on missions, Sunday- 
 schools, education, and pastoral support, doing it 
 with tact and without exciting needless antagonism. 
 Then the senior pastor said: "Brother, there will 
 be a big crowd here tomorrow. Can't you preach 
 for us again?" So on Sunday morning Dr. Brown 
 preached again on missions, Sunday-schools, educa- 
 tion, and pastoral support. When he was through 
 he called on the old Hardshell pastor to conclude 
 the services, which he did in the following address : 
 "Brethren, Bro. Brown is a Baptist, as you all can 
 see, though not our kind of a Baptist. He has 
 proved to us out of the Book [for Dr. Brown had 
 given them chapter and verse for every contention] 
 everything that he has said today, and we can't 
 git around it, for he got it out of the Book, and, 
 brethren, I endorse it." Another brother arose and 
 said: "We will meet here next Sunday morning 
 and establish a Sunday-school." One tactful ap- 
 proach by a man who understood and loved the 
 people put that church and community on the up- 
 ward path and transformed the church from a Hard- 
 shell to a Missionary Baptist church. Throughout 
 the South are hundreds of opportunities to render a 
 like service, opportunities which Baptists cannot af- 
 ford to neglect. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI. 
 1. Give a reason why the story of the conflict of missions
 
 128 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 and anti-missions is interesting. Were the early anti- 
 mission Baptists wilfully ignorant? 
 
 2. Name the most serious fact about anti-missions. If we 
 leave the people untaught, should we be surprised when 
 some wayward champion misleads them? In what spirit 
 should we approach this question? 
 
 3. When was the warfare at its strongest? What did Baptists 
 in effect announce when they set up the Southern Con- 
 vention ? 
 
 4. Give the occasions and the causes of the anti-mission 
 conflict. 
 
 5. How did the masses of the people view the distinguished 
 spokesman of Foreign Missions? Tell of the small oppor- 
 tunities the people had to be informed of missionary needs. 
 
 6. Describe the early Baptist jealousy for local church 
 autonomy. 
 
 7. Did zeal for church autonomy retard the formation of 
 District Associations? What idea was incorporated in the 
 constitutions of all Baptist co-operative organizations? 
 Did jealousy for the independence of the churches retard 
 the organization of State bodies? Give the experience of 
 different States. 
 
 8. Describe the effect of the agitation for Foreign Missions 
 which followed Judson's going to India. What tactical 
 mistake did Kentucky make? 
 
 9. Tell of the fear of centralization as expressed by John 
 Leland, John Taylor, and "Club-Ax" Davis. 
 
 10. Show how hyper-Calvinism worked against missions. 
 Tell of the result of Sanford Vandiver preaching on mis- 
 sions at Saluda Association in 1836. 
 
 11. Quote Dr. B. F. Riley on reasons for the fire of the 
 conflict. When did it come to be an open flame? Tell 
 why patience becomes the Baptist advocates of missions. 
 
 12. Give an instance of the wild utterances of the anti-mission 
 defenders. 
 
 13. Carefully describe the shrewd way in which Alexander 
 Campbell did great harm to untaught Baptists. 
 
 14. What was the result of the Campbell onslaught?
 
 MISSIONS AND ANTI-MISSIONS 129 
 
 15. Tell when and how missions won the day. 
 
 16. Tell of anti-mission Baptists now in the South, What is 
 the practical difference in giving between them and Mis- 
 sionary Baptists? What of the difference in principles? 
 
 17. Can the Hardshell Baptists be won to progress and mis- 
 sions? Tell of Superintendent Brown's visit to a Hard- 
 shell church in the Highlands. 
 
 18. Tell of the Hardshell pastor's surrender when shown 
 that the Bible teaches missions. Have we an obligation 
 to teach our Hardshell brethren?
 
 Missions in America deal not with culminations, but with 
 beginnings. Its function is not to sing the triumph song of 
 harvest, but to sweat with the labor of the days of plowing 
 and planting. It must fall into the ground and die, to the 
 end that others afterward may reap thirty and sixty and one 
 hundred fold. By its very nature missions works in the day 
 of small things. Materially, it has no beauty that it should 
 be desired. It wears no glamor of earthly glory. It has no 
 gala day. It hears no worldly applause. The loneliness of 
 the picket line and the poverty of the pioneer are the cross 
 and the crown of its daily life. But this is fundamental to 
 the progress of the Kingdom. Churches do not spring forth 
 full grown by the fiat of the Almighty. It is a Kingdom 
 of Life and it comes by the normal operation of the laws of 
 life. It is first the grain of mustard, smallest of all seeds, 
 but growing until the birds of heaven find a home in its 
 branches. It is first the blade and then the ear and after- 
 wards the full corn in the ear. 
 
 The advance of the Kingdom is along the line of the weak, 
 struggling, little churches monuments of the faith and hero- 
 ism of men and women who believe the promises of God 
 outposts pushed across the line of the Usurper's domain 
 the advance guard of the Kingdom. I see it yonder the 
 little church at the front plain and bare no artistic beauty 
 no glory in the eyes of the world but it is Bethel, the House 
 of God, the Gate of Heaven. Immortal souls out there where 
 life is hard, passing through into the City of God. If so 
 be that the gates of the City are pearls, then yonder humble 
 little chapel is one of God's jewels, and the keeper of the 
 gate not only a shepherd of the scattered sheep of today, 
 but a herald at the front proclaiming the coming of the 
 King. A. G. Jones, D.D.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES. 
 
 1. A Remarkable Achievement. The establish- 
 ment among Baptists of the South within the last 
 century of an efficient and well articulated system 
 of denominational organizations, was a remarkable 
 achievement. It is to be remembered that no Scrip- 
 ture teaching directly commanded these organiza- 
 tions. The germ of organization for service may be 
 found among the early churches, but it did not 
 make a clear appeal to our pioneer sires. Fearful of 
 centralization, with almost no experience except in 
 Virginia in the helpfulness of co-operative effort, 
 restrained by a conservatism common to all times 
 and an abounding individualism which was a char- 
 acteristic product of their own faith and time, yet 
 these early Baptists moved forward toward an or- 
 ganized denominational life as if drawn by some 
 inner necessity beyond their own understanding. 
 Local church independence was their shibboleth. 
 Perhaps nine-tenths of them looked upon a State 
 Convention with indifference, while many regarded 
 it a dangerous innovation and were more or less 
 doubtful even about Associations. Yet Associations 
 had sprung up in every State and by the end of the 
 second decade of the nineteenth century the day of 
 the State Convention and General Association was 
 come to its dawning. A study of our people in
 
 132 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 connection with the growth from the rank indi- 
 vidualism and democracy of 1800 to their far-reach- 
 ing organized life of 1915, cannot but convince the 
 student that the hand of God has brought them 
 into their present advanced efficiency. The Spirit 
 of God and their own good sense and plenteous 
 spirit of Christian fellowship have led Southern Bap- 
 tists to form their denominational organizations. 
 
 2. Centrality of State Organization. In their 
 denominational life the State bodies of Southern 
 Baptists are central. The prime thought of the 
 fathers in organizing District Associations was fel- 
 lowship, but the chief intent which led to the State 
 organization was service. With the internal needs of 
 its own commonwealth first in its heart, the State 
 Convention or Association from the first also looked 
 outward toward Samaria and the uttermost part, and 
 promptly set this concern for the whole lost world 
 down in its Constitution, except when it thought 
 this statement would offend some of the swarming 
 anti-missionaries beyond measure whom the Con- 
 vention hoped to win. With the District Associa* 
 tion fellowship and mutual edification was the or- 
 ganizing force, though it was inevitable that out 
 of the godly nature of this fellowship would spring 
 missions and service. The State body is central in 
 our Southern Baptist scheme of co-operative organi- 
 zation, because in it heads up the on-going force of 
 the churches, the common needs and purposes of 
 which it serves with an understanding that no body 
 can possibly have that is farther removed, and 
 which at the same time it marshalls for the great
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 133 
 
 tasks of the general organization of the denomina- 
 tion. The biggest things which Southern Baptists 
 have are their General Boards and their work. But 
 none of these agencies is so essential to Southern 
 Baptists as are the seventeen State bodies. These 
 bodies are in turn outranked in aggregate impor- 
 tance as representative Baptist bodies by the 900 
 District Associations and the Associations by the 
 24,500 churches. In the simple but adequate 
 system of organizations by which Southern Baptists 
 combine for co-operative Kingdom service, the State 
 Convention fills a crucial and indispensable place. 
 
 3. A Logical Evolution. Logically in the evolu- 
 tion of Baptist co-operative organizations, the Dis- 
 trict Association should come first and the State 
 Association or Convention next. This is what hap- 
 pened in the South. In every State the general or- 
 ganization of Baptists followed the formation of a 
 number of Associations. Also the call for the State 
 organizations found its expression through the As- 
 sociations, though not all of them participated in the 
 call. Logically the general Convention of the de- 
 nomination should be initiated through State bodies, 
 which have already arrived at a degree of stability. 
 This is what happened in the formation of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. At the time of its 
 organization there were ten State Baptist bodies in 
 the South, from six to twenty-four years old. This 
 is what had not happened in the case of the Tri- 
 ennial Convention, organized in 1814. That body 
 organized as a National Baptist Convention, but its 
 members came from a variety of sources, largely on
 
 134 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 a financial basis. There were only three State Bap- 
 tist Conventions in America when the Triennial Con- 
 vention was organized. There was no dependable 
 educational and inspirational intermediary between 
 it and the great mass of our Baptist churches. 
 Partly for this reason the Triennial Convention came 
 to grief. It was too removed from the far-scattered 
 churches to serve and interpret their spirit adequate- 
 ly or to adjust itself to their needs and limitations. 
 
 4. State and Southern Conventions. The South- 
 ern Baptist Convention has become a great and pow- 
 erful body, with constructive and saving agencies 
 which are mighty and far-reaching, but it would be 
 impossible for it to do one-half the work it does or 
 do it one-half so well, without the presence and 
 leadership in each State of a competent and vigor- 
 ous State organization. So patent is this that one 
 of the chief functions of its Home Mission Board 
 during all of its history has been through co-opera- 
 tive aid to help to bring the new and weak State 
 bodies into strength and adequacy of grasp of the 
 missionary needs within their territory. State 
 autonomy looms large among Southern Baptists. It 
 is a historic and inevitable feature of our life. It has 
 wrought much more good than harm, and as our body 
 grows in co-operative experience, it will more and 
 more understand how to eliminate what harm there 
 may be. 
 
 5. State Spirit. State autonomy has character- 
 ized and conditioned the growth of Southern Bap- 
 tists as a missionary body in a larger degree than 
 is true of any other religious body in America. Not
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 135 
 
 even Northern Baptists, though like us in the inner 
 principles which seek to express themselves in their 
 organic life, seem to attach half the importance 
 we do to the autonomy of the State bodies. With 
 Southern Baptists State spirit has tended toward a 
 wholesome rivalry for pre-eminence in the things 
 of Kingdom service to which they in common 
 devote themselves, while at the same time it has 
 given the local body a sense of added responsibility 
 and freed it from the interference of outside agen- 
 cies in its territory, except on conditions which 
 itself named as adapted. One of the greatest claims 
 the Home Mission Board could make in evidence that 
 it has wrought tactfully and ably in the South, 
 would be to show the immense constructive service 
 it has rendered throughout the years in territory 
 every rod of which is under the primary supervision 
 of some State body. But this happy facility in 
 finding always satisfactory terms for co-operative 
 missionary impact is equally creditable to the State 
 bodies, without the sound judgment and fraternal 
 concern of which frictionless co-operation could not 
 exist. 
 
 6. Conserving Church Independence. Like the 
 District Association the State Convention had to 
 take a course of many years in the school of local 
 church sovereignty. The District Association should 
 have learned its lesson so well by the time the State 
 bodies were organized, as to serve as a helpful 
 intermediary and conciliator. Often it did, but not 
 always, as we shall see. Says Dr. Lansing Bur- 
 rows in How Baptists Work Together: "Non-Bap-
 
 136 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 tist bodies claim a jurisdiction in which the local 
 organizations are held as subordinate. Decrees are 
 made which, while worded in gentle and affectionate 
 terms, nevertheless possess a binding force over the 
 local church, as for example, the Methodist assess- 
 ments for the support of general interests. Our 
 brethren observed this practice among other denomi- 
 nations, and set their faces sternly against such imi- 
 tation. So that it was natural for them to inquire 
 closely if a Convention was to be like a General 
 Conference or Synod, and they were not disposed 
 to commit themselves until they felt assured to the 
 contrary. ' ' 
 
 7. Jealousy for Church Sovereignty Did Good. 
 It is easy to smile at the early Baptist jealousy of 
 the principle of local church independence. But it 
 was not a smiling matter with them. Question : Is 
 it not probable that if they had not been so solicitous 
 for the principle, we would now need rather to 
 mourn for ourselves than smile at them? It is true 
 that anti-missionary forces joined in the hue and 
 cry against "centralization," because they saw that 
 a defeat of organization would be a victory for 
 do-nothingism. But it is also true that churches and 
 Associations which were supporting missionary work, 
 were honestly afraid that the State organization 
 would assume undelegated authority and become 
 oppressive. After 1828 some of them pointed not 
 without cause to the controversy that year in the 
 Triennial Convention, occasioned by that body ac- 
 cepting money from the government to educate 
 Cherokee Indians, as an evidence that Baptist Con-
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 137 
 
 ventions would do things they had no business to do. 
 One reason Southern Baptists today are shot through 
 with the thought that church sovereignty is to be 
 preserved, and all denominational action to be ad- 
 justed to this essential, is that those early sires 
 vigilantly watched every Association and every 
 State Convention to see that it did not encroach 
 upon the local church. It may seem a little unfair 
 that the average mode of procedure of these de- 
 fenders was to make the Convention or Association 
 prove its innocence first, before they would join it. 
 If all the churches had done so, it would have been 
 slow work organizing. But the unfairness is not 
 more than is likely to accompany all co-operative 
 human action, however high its purpose, and un- 
 doubtedly their persistent attitude of watchfulness 
 and jealousy did much to fill the organized agencies 
 of Southern Baptists until this day with a thorough- 
 going respect for the supreme authority of the 
 local bodies they seek to serve, such as probably no 
 other religious Conventions or Boards on earth ever 
 had besides ours. Let us thank God for it, and also 
 those noble pioneer Baptists. Fine ideals come to 
 realization slowly when you must first teach almost 
 everybody their value before you can do anything. 
 But it is the Lord's way and it is the only Baptist 
 way. At the other end of the road is spiritual 
 aristocracy and hierarchy, from which may God ever 
 preserve Baptists and the world. 
 
 8. The First State Convention. The impulse to 
 organize State bodies seemed to strike Southern 
 Baptists at almost the same time in all the older
 
 138 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 States. It was only eighteen years from the first 
 organization to the last in the States which were 
 then far enough advanced for organization. We 
 can only conjecture that similar conditions in these 
 States and the fact that Baptists had grown rapidly 
 in each of them for the last thirty or forty years, 
 brought them all about the -same time to feel the 
 need of a State organization. In addition, the first 
 organization must have suggested others. South 
 Carolina led. At Columbia, South Carolina, the Bap- 
 tist State Convention was organized in 1821 by 
 delegates from the Charleston, Savannah Eiver, and 
 Edgefield Associations. Four other Asociations were 
 not represented. Saluda Association, now a strong 
 missionary body, came in after a year or two, but 
 almost immediately withdrew, alarmed lest the State 
 body might coerce the churches. The three Asso- 
 ciations which formed the body and the Welch Neck, 
 a child of Charleston Association, were the only 
 Associations in it until 1835. 
 
 9. Georgia. Georgia organized in 1822. It was 
 the day of small things, but they had vast poten- 
 tialities. With about 25,000 Baptists in Associa- 
 tions, the Georgia Convention was organized by 
 delegates from only two Associations the Georgia 
 and Ocmulgee. The Sarepta, which had issued the 
 call for the organization, decided before the meet- 
 ing that no Convention was needed. Organization 
 brought criticism from many Baptist quarters here 
 as elsewhere, and nine years later the Ocmulgee 
 withdrew from the Convention under the impulsion 
 of anti-organization, anti-mission leadership, and re-
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 139 
 
 mained out of the body for about half a century. 
 The State Board of Missions was not organized until 
 1878. 
 
 10. Virginia. Virginia Baptists organized the 
 General Association at Richmond in 1823. They 
 were familiar with co-operative organizations among 
 the Associations for the needs of religious liberty and 
 public welfare, but the new State body gathered up 
 and expressed the conscience of the churches for mis- 
 sions. Only fifteen delegates were present and in the 
 offing beyond the Blue Ridge were some anti-mission 
 brethren who were not pleased, but Virginia Bap- 
 tists had had much training in conflicts which were 
 of the most serious moment and had learned self- 
 control. They took hold of the work of the General 
 Association with a zeal which has never abated. 
 State Missions was the prime concern of the new 
 body and two noble itinerant missionaries were im- 
 mediately sent into the back counties J. B. Jeter 
 and Daniel Witt. Virginia, South Carolina, and 
 Mississippi escaped the more lurid manifestations 
 of the anti-organization conflict which greatly 
 stirred and distressed the Baptist Zion in the other 
 older States. 
 
 11. Alabama. Alabama Baptists also organized 
 their Convention in 1823. The "anti" spirit was 
 abroad and the State was still young and subject to 
 the crudities of pioneer commonwealths. The Conven- 
 tion bravely sent out fifteen State missionaries, who 
 went into the back country as gospel itinerants, 
 preaching Christ and counting as nothing the ravings 
 of the anti-missionary preachers, who in Alabama
 
 140 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 at that time were extreme and unrelenting. Ten 
 years later, these opposers of religious co-operative 
 effort actually hammered the State Convention down 
 to four delegates. Its sad plight drove the four to 
 their knees and God heard their prayer. The Con- 
 vention began to grow and has grown until today. 
 It has blessed hundreds of thousands, while the spir- 
 itual descendants of the loud-talking exponents of 
 unbridled individualism are just an untutored hand- 
 ful here and there in sundry remote corners. 
 
 12. North Carolina. North Carolina Baptists or- 
 ganized their State Convention in 1830. They organ- 
 ized simply by changing the North Carolina Baptist 
 Benevolent Society into a Convention. The Society 
 had been an inter-Association organization for fel- 
 lowship, mutual edification, and missions. The chief 
 intergrating force in North Carolina was State Mis- 
 sions. The new Convention was frankly aware of 
 the anti-mission opposition in the offing. Thomas 
 Meredith, one of its most honored leaders, was ap- 
 pointed to write a circular letter to the Baptists of 
 the State. In this Meredith told the anti-missionaries 
 that the Convention neither despised them nor was 
 afraid of them, but regarded them as brethren. "We 
 sincerely regret the loss of your services," said he, 
 "but you cannot injure us nor can you prevent the 
 accomplishment of our plans." It was a candid but 
 not unkind pronouncement ; the author has not found 
 a more admirable promulgation in connection with 
 the early Baptist conflict over missions. The fearless 
 but sympathetic utterances of Thomas Meredith in 
 that early day is the spirit which characterizes Tar
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 141 
 
 Heel Baptists to this hour. If some of the other 
 States had faced the opposers, not only with kind- 
 ness, which they all showed, but frank fearlessness, 
 they would no doubt have overcome them more thor- 
 oughly and speedily. 
 
 13. Kentucky. Kentucky organized a State Con- 
 vention in 1832. What with the current agitation of 
 the rough but gifted Daniel Parker against mis- 
 sions and of the shrewd and unscrupulous Alexander 
 Campbell against nearly everything which the preju- 
 dices of untaught Baptists objected to, the State 
 Convention could only hope to succeed by giving the 
 "enemy" no occasion of railing. Unhappily they 
 adopted a scheme of "helping evangelists" for dif- 
 ferent sections that looked to the opposers like the 
 Episcopal Bishopric. So the Cenvention got weaker 
 yearly and died in 1835. But in 1837, at Louisville, a 
 spiritual descendent of the Convention was estab- 
 lished in the Kentucky General Association. The 
 new body announced as its special business the pro- 
 motion of the cause of God in Kentucky, for the time 
 leaving the opposers no better cudgel than con- 
 jecture as to what its further missionary program 
 might be. The new body was missionary more 
 than most. It had a great fight ahead against the 
 adversaries, but it made it with remarkable skill 
 and wisdom. It not only developed the spirit of co- 
 operative missions with great success, but saved most 
 of the churches from getting entangled and mangled 
 in the net which the astute Campbell had industri- 
 ously woven and set to ensnare their feet. 
 
 14. Tennessee. Tennessee organized in 1833.
 
 142 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 With a border country of nearly 300 miles between 
 Tennessee and Kentucky, and both of them largely 
 the children of transmontane pioneer immigration, 
 there was much in common. Kentucky Baptists at 
 first advanced more rapidly and they helped Ten- 
 nessee by sending missionaries. The infliction of 
 Alexander Campbell and of anti-mission agitation 
 they suffered in common and under similar condi- 
 tions. The State Convention only held together for 
 a year or two, on account of the differing condi- 
 tions and also the lack of nearness to each other of 
 East, Middle and West Tennessee. Sectional Con- 
 ventions were organized for each division of the 
 State. These performed a useful function until 
 1874, when Middle and West Tennessee, with some 
 of the East Tennessee churches participating, formed 
 the State Convention as it now stands. The to- 
 pography of Tennessee has made the effective organi- 
 zation of Baptists more difficult, and other condi- 
 tions have deterred, but the State organization of 
 today has made great progress in effectiveness and 
 solidarity. 
 
 15. Missouri. Missouri Baptists organized a Gen- 
 eral Association in 1836. Missouri was settled largely 
 from Kentucky, Tennessee, and other Southern 
 States, and the early Baptists got their problems 
 and viewpoints largely from the South. The un- 
 wholesome flavor of Campbellism and the rudeness 
 of anti-mission opposition loudly asserted themselves. 
 Nothing daunted, Baptists of the fuller faith began 
 in 1834 a preliminary feeling toward State organiza- 
 tion, and accomplished it two years later. The Bap-
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 143 
 
 tist State organization of Missouri differs from that 
 of other States in that there is an adjustment by 
 which they co-operate both with the Northern and 
 the Southern Baptist Convention, a compromise 
 made to satisfy internal conditions of the body. 
 The General Association has grown in power 
 and usefulness steadily and is cultivating for Bap- 
 tists and the Kingdom a field more than usually 
 difficult, on account of involved urban, rural, and 
 foreign problems. 
 
 16. Maryland. Maryland Baptists organized the 
 Maryland Union Association in 1836. Years before, 
 in 1793, the Baltimore Association had been or- 
 ganized and had done some excellent mission work, 
 but in 1836 the anti-missionary forces got control of 
 it and the constructive element withdrew and or- 
 ganized the Union Baptist Association, which has 
 since been the more than ordinarily efficient general 
 Baptist body of the State. Small in numbers through- 
 out their history, in a State of Catholic and Metho- 
 dist religious numerical strength, the Maryland Bap- 
 tists do more per capita for missions than those of 
 any other Southern State. 
 
 17. Mississippi. South Carolina, Georgia, and 
 Albama furnished many of the earlier Baptists in 
 Mississippi. In the pre-organization period there was 
 some persecution by Catholics. But early Mississippi 
 Baptists seem to have suffered less from anti-mis- 
 sion agitation than any of the older States, per- 
 haps less than even Virginia or South Carolina. Still 
 they were not entirely free from such agitation. Be- 
 fore the organization, the Associations were doing
 
 144 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 capital mission work in Louisiana and steps had 
 been taken for denominational education in the 
 State. The Mississippi State Convention has evan- 
 gelized its territory with unsurpassed successs and 
 has steadily grown as a constructive power in the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. It was organized in 
 1836. 
 
 18. Strength to Form the Southern Convention. 
 This completes the number of State Baptist bodies 
 organized in the South before the organization of 
 the Southern Baptist Convention. Texas, Arkansas, 
 and Louisiana organized in 1848, Florida in 1854, and 
 Oklahoma, Illinois, and New Mexico at subsequent 
 periods. These State organizations, with their in- 
 ternal missionary development and their experience 
 in the ways and means of denominational growth, 
 developed in the fire of conflict with open opposition 
 or with indifference and reluctance, made possible 
 the Southern Baptist Convention. When it tran- 
 spired in the first meeting of that body, brought into 
 being though it was in part by a principle in which 
 all the denomination in the South differed from the 
 Triennial Convention, that there were only sixty dele- 
 gates present from beyond the two States of South 
 Carolina and Georgia, on whose borders it was held, 
 and which sent 262, the Convention fathers felt no 
 discouragement. It was largely accounted for by 
 the absence of facilities for travel. 
 
 19. Developing the State First. The first work 
 to which the various State bodies generally ad- 
 dressed themselves was State Missions, not however 
 to the exclusion of missions in foreign lands or the
 
 ORGANIZATION OF STATE BODIES 145 
 
 other sections of America. They felt that the im- 
 mediate necessity was upon them to build up the 
 waste places of Zion within their own borders and 
 to develop a Baptist body able to project itself 
 beyond. They were right. If they had put the 
 emphasis elsewhere, they could not have had such 
 uniform success in overcoming the forces of disor- 
 ganization, which sought their undoing in practically 
 every State. Along with evangelistic zeal, concern 
 for ministerial and general denominational education 
 did not fail of early expression in every State. To- 
 gether with State Missions education everywhere 
 shared the distinction of being a chief integrating 
 force. Great as that story is, it cannot be adequately 
 set forth even in epitome in these pages. However, 
 Christian Education in spirit was and is really mis- 
 sions. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1. Show why the establishment of denominational organiza- 
 tions among Baptists has been remarkable. What was the 
 shibboleth of the early Baptists? Is there reason to believe 
 that the hand of God was in the development of our 
 co-operative organization ? 
 
 2. How did the integrating forces of the State Convention 
 differ from those of the District Association? What was 
 the first thought of the State bodies? Describe the central- 
 ity of the State body in our Baptist scheme of organization. 
 Give the relative importance of the State and general 
 organizations. 
 
 3. Describe the logical order of the organization of Baptist 
 bodies. In what large way did the Southern Baptist 
 Convention differ from the Triennial Convention in its 
 organizing forces?
 
 146 
 
 4. Describe hovr the State bodies strengthened the Southern 
 Convention. Mention one of the large functions of the 
 Home Mission Board. 
 
 5. In regard for State autonomy how do Southern Baptists 
 compare with other Christian bodies? Tell what effect 
 State spirit has had among our people. Name a great 
 claim the Home Board could make to show its efficiency. 
 
 6. Tell what State bodies learned from church independence. 
 
 7. Explain how jealousy for church independence did good. 
 To what act of the Triennial Convention did Baptists point 
 after 1828 in evidence of the danger of centralization? 
 Describe how early jealousy for church autonomy has 
 given Southern Baptists now the most democratic of or- 
 ganizations. 
 
 S. Give the reasons why most of the State Conventions or- 
 ganized near the same time. Which was the first State 
 body to organize? 
 
 9. Give the facts about State organization in Georgia. 
 
 10. Give the date about State organization in Virginia. 
 
 11. Give the date about State organization in Alabama. 
 
 12. Tell of the organization in North Carolina, and of Dr. 
 Meredith's pronouncement to the anti-missionaries. 
 
 13. Tell of the difficulties in connection with State organiza- 
 tion in Kentucky. 
 
 14. Describe the situation in Tennessee and give the facts 
 about State organization. 
 
 15. Give the date and facts about Missouri organization. 
 
 16. Tell of the organization of the State body in Maryland. 
 
 17. Describe the situation in Mississippi and tell of the State 
 organization. 
 
 18. What State bodies organized later than 1845? What was 
 the relation of the older State bodies to the organizing 
 of the Southern Baptist Convention? 
 
 19. To what did the State bodies address themselves? De- 
 scribe their attitude toward Foreign and Home Missions.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 MISSION WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES. 
 
 1. Service of Immense Value. The agencies of 
 Baptists in the South for the definite task of evan- 
 gelizing the people and building up the churches, 
 are the State Boards of Missions and the Home Mis- 
 sion Board. There are, however, other agencies which 
 have rendered to the denomination and to the South 
 missionary service of immense value. To give even 
 an adequate bird's-eye view of the service of these 
 agencies would require half the space in this book. 
 The present chapter will undertake merely to suggest 
 the inestimable constructive service rendered by the 
 chief of these agencies, viz. : Educational Institution*, 
 the Sunday School Board, the Woman's Missionary 
 Union, and the Denominational Press. 
 
 2. Kinship of Christian Education and Missions. 
 Educational institutions, to be fostered and directed 
 by the denomination, came into the minds of the 
 fathers as something to be desired at the same time 
 missions did. At the constitution of most of the State 
 Conventions the establishment of Baptist educational 
 institutions shared with missionary designs the dis- 
 tinction of being set forth as a purpose of the or- 
 ganization. In no State was a Baptist college opera- 
 ting before the State body organized, except in 
 Texas, and in none did a considerable time elapse 
 after the organization before a Baptist educational
 
 148 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 institution was at work. Fought and feared by the 
 same men who opposed missions, and championed 
 always by the friends of missionary effort, Baptist 
 educational endeavor had and still has the right to 
 be considered a twin brother of missions and de- 
 nominational efficiency. 
 
 3. To Educate Preachers! Baptist educational 
 effort in the South was born in a desire to have an 
 educated ministry, though it soon grew to embrace 
 the desire for an educated laity. The first advocacy 
 among Southern Baptists of a fund for educating 
 preachers, of which there is a record, was that of 
 Oliver Hart before the Charleston Association in 
 1757. The Association began a system of support 
 for approved young preachers, while they were 
 studying for the ministry, which it never gave up 
 nntil the good work was turned over to the State 
 Convention. In 1788 the attention of Virginia Bap- 
 tists was called to the need of establishing a school, 
 and the interest started eventuated finally in Rich- 
 mond College. 
 
 4. Richard Furman and Education. To Richard 
 Furman belongs the credit of being the man who first 
 turned the hearts of Baptists to the importance of 
 denominational education. He was reckoned the 
 greatest Baptist of his day. Himself almost entirely 
 self-educated, in 1791 he became in South Carolina 
 the ardent and untiring leader of this cause, and the 
 old First Church, of which he was pastor, its chief 
 supporter. Twenty-six years later, as President of 
 the Triennial Convention he thrilled the body with 
 a great address on the importance of Christian edu-
 
 WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 149 
 
 cation, and from that Convention went out the in- 
 fluences which put on its feet the Baptist educational 
 movement in America. Luther Bice is generally ac- 
 credited as being the first great apostle of Baptist 
 education in this country, and the author is reluctant 
 to take a position which will doubtless run athwart 
 the belief of many. But Luther Rice should be ac- 
 cepted as the agent of the Triennial Convention, 
 appointed to promote missionary enterprises and 
 later also educational interests. If the greatness of 
 his labors in this double cause be duly credited, he 
 will receive much honor. Meantime, if Dr. Richard 
 Furman was the chief pioneer of Baptist educational 
 interests in America, the full credit of that leader- 
 ship should be given to his memory and to Southern 
 Baptists. (See Appendix A.) 
 
 5. Heroic Devotion and Service. Perhaps not even 
 the building up of the cause of evangelistic mission- 
 ary effort among Southern Baptists has brought into 
 play more heroism and sacrifice than character- 
 ized the men who for Southern Baptists bore the 
 heat of the day in developing our system of theo- 
 logical and collegiate education. That day was in- 
 terminably long, the heavens were as brass, and the 
 heat was fierce during a large part of the time. It 
 seems almost like irreverence to dispose of the 
 exalted passion and devotion of scores of the noblest 
 men the Baptist body or any other religious body 
 ever produced with this paragraphic reference. The 
 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Richmond 
 College, Wake Forest, Furman, Mercer, Howard, 
 Mississippi, Georgetown, Union, Baylor, and William
 
 150 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Jewell, among the older institutions, and scores of 
 others of equal spirit and worth since, including the 
 Southwestern Theological Seminary the blood, the 
 tears, the lives of our best and noblest have been 
 freely given to them to organize and to cherish, to 
 see disintegrating through the fortunes of war, to 
 nurse and cherish again, always to speak and write 
 and travel, trying to elicit at the same time both 
 funds and students from a denominational body 
 which greatly needed and did not fully appreciate 
 the institutions this story rightly told could hardly 
 be surpassed in the annals of heroic devotion and 
 exalted idealism. 
 
 6. To What End? Most of us think of missions 
 only in terms of preaching Christ to a lost soul and 
 bringing him to accept the Saviour. The concept is 
 glorious and great, but the full function of missions 
 embraces more. There is a life to save and train 
 for service, as well as a soul to win. Far more in- 
 volved than evangelistic missions is the work of 
 leading out the Christian life into service, but this 
 more involved service is just as truly in the pur- 
 poses of our Lord. Chosen men among our fathers 
 saw this, but the idea was beyond many and the 
 task was hard of getting all to see. After a hun- 
 dred years, what of the missionary value of denomi- 
 national education? It has given us an educated 
 ministry, without which Baptists could not begin to 
 serve the great and difficult needs in the South or in 
 foreign lands. It has given us a laity more active 
 and trained in the things of the Kingdom. It has 
 given us quiet leadership and constructive effort in
 
 WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 151 
 
 hundreds of churches, without which not any co-op- 
 erative task we perform would receive the support it 
 does. Particularly, Christian education has been 
 what the fathers believed it would be, the right arm 
 of the missionary enterprise at home and abroad. 
 With an immense service yet to render, Baptist edu- 
 cational institutions in the South have justified every 
 dollar which has been put into them, even if the 
 contribution be considered only as missions. 
 
 7. The Sunday School Board. The Sunday 
 School Board at Nashville, developed from small 
 beginnings in 1892 into a great publishing plant with 
 assets totaling $650,000 and annual receipts of $400,- 
 000, is the fruition of a Sunday-school concern among 
 Southern Baptists which had manifested itself in 
 various ways and with varying success since the 
 Southern Convention was organized. The history of 
 the effort is largely that of missions and for years 
 before 1892 the Sunday-school publications were in 
 the hands of the Home Mission Board. As this great 
 religious business stands today, it is not only a plant 
 for intensive missions through its work of " teach- 
 ing all things whatsoever;" it is also appreciably a 
 missionary agency in the more generic sense of aiding 
 in evangelizing the lost and in developing the latent 
 resources of the churches. Including all kinds of 
 work which may fairly be classed as missions, the 
 Board had up to 1915 contributed more than $600,- 
 000 to mission work. 
 
 8. Missionary Day and Gifts to Boards. With- 
 out taking space to analyze the mission work of the 
 Sunday School Board, attention is called to the
 
 152 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 special Missionary Day, which the Board conducts 
 in the Sunday schools of the South annually, and 
 the missionary page it maintains in Kind Words, its 
 weekly Sunday-school paper. In addition it makes 
 considerable cash gifts to the work of the Foreign, 
 Home and State Boards. In 1915 these gifts totaled 
 $17,000. 
 
 9. Sunday-School Teacher Training. Perhaps the 
 Sunday School Board is in advance of any similar 
 denominational agency in America in its Department 
 of Sunday School Education. Besides maintaining 
 a staff of ten expert field workers, who conduct 
 teacher training institutes throughout the South, the 
 Board participates in the support of fifteen State 
 Sunday-school missionaries or secretaries, whose ac- 
 tivities are somewhat similar to those of the Board's 
 own staff. This is intensive or educational missions 
 of a high order and of value beyond computation. 
 It means much for the efficiency and largeness of 
 our denominational impact on the South in the 
 future. Not only so ; these experts are doing a work 
 of immense value in teaching the young people the 
 doctrines of the faith. 
 
 10. Woman's Missionary Union. It is not in- 
 tended in this book to treat of the mission work of 
 Baptists in the South among the people of other 
 lands, though the heartiest recognition is given to 
 Foreign Missions, both for its helpful influence upon 
 the denomination's work in the South and for its 
 great saving power in other nations. The Woman's 
 Missionary Union serves both Home and Foreign 
 Missions and is of great value to both causes. With
 
 WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 153 
 
 a quietness and modesty which has measurably kept 
 the more loud-speaking brethren from understand- 
 ing the bigness and blessedness of their work, the 
 Southern Baptist women have developed approxi- 
 mately 9,000 mission societies in the churches, besides 
 many children's societies. These operate through 
 State bodies and their general Union, which are 
 auxiliary to the State and Southern Conventions 
 respectively. In 1915 the women's missionary so- 
 cieties in the churches in the South contributed to 
 Home and Foreign Missions $283,500, out of the total 
 of $925,000 which Southern Baptists gave to those 
 objects. That is, they gave thirty per cent, of all 
 that was given by the churches. At the same time, 
 they contributed a large sum to State Missions and 
 to the Training School at Louisville and other ob- 
 jects. 
 
 11. Educational Missions. Perhaps a greater 
 argument for the value of educational or intensive 
 missions could not be found than the record of the 
 Woman's Missionary Union. Collecting money is 
 only an incident with them ; their general work is im- 
 parting information. The regular program of the 
 societies is a program of education concerning some 
 mission field or need. These educational methods, 
 quietly pursued by groups of Baptist women in 9,000 
 churches out of 24,500, are producing thirty per cent. 
 of the entire contributions of Southern Baptists to 
 Home and Foreign Missions! They educate and 
 easily raise much money from a membership whose 
 average financial resources are small. Most of the 
 churches depend upon special collections, without a
 
 154 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 system of education. They have a membership about 
 twelve times as large as that of the societies, and 
 it includes the sex which usually carries the family 
 purse. But 24,500 churches with 2,600,000 members 
 by this method only do a bit more than twice as 
 much as 9,000 women's societies with about 200,000 
 members ! 
 
 12. The Press a Missionary Force. The denomi- 
 national press of Southern Baptists has exerted a 
 tremendous missionary influence. This it has done 
 through information and appeal and by standing 
 for every constructive work of the Kingdom and the 
 co-operative efforts of the brotherhood. The Baptist 
 newspaper came into existence in the South along 
 with State organizations, missions, and Christian edu- 
 cation. It belongs in the same group ; without it all 
 the others would be crippled to less than half their 
 strength. Query: Is it not an anomaly that, while 
 the denomination puts its back beneath the load 
 borne by every other agency it has for Kingdom 
 service, it continues to treat its newspapers as 
 half brothers, to be given good will but only such 
 aid as they can by their own strength command? 
 
 13. The Papers Have a Hard Time. Methodists 
 have put their papers into the denomination 's scheme 
 of activities. A pastor's work is reviewed and esti- 
 mated partly on the basis of how he stands by or 
 neglects the circulation of the denominational paper. 
 A result is that Methodist families have the religious 
 paper in a larger proportion than Baptist families 
 have theirs. The Baptist paper has a hard time. Cath- 
 cart's Encyclopedia names forty-six Baptist papers
 
 WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 155 
 
 which up to 1880, had sought to serve the brother- 
 hood in the Southern States. Of the number thirty 
 had died and sixteen were living. Since 1880 the 
 mortality has remained large. Many of the noblest 
 and best men among us have put their lives and 
 money into this service, but it is still a difficult work, 
 appreciation of which almost chronically declines to 
 take the form of active help. The paper is a necessity 
 as a medium through which the co-operative ideals 
 of the denomination may be formed and propagated, 
 and through which brethren may counsel concerning 
 the growth of the Kingdom and stir up the laggard 
 and uninformed to an interest in and understand- 
 ing of such great things. More than any other 
 agency it develops a denominational consciousness. 
 It breaks down misconceptions, gives a medium of 
 expression to the fellowship of the brethren, wins 
 converts to missions and progress, and safeguards 
 the unwary against perverse currents of false teach- 
 ing. The denominational press is absolutely essen- 
 tial to the maintenance on the part of Baptists in the 
 South of a constructive and triumphant missionary 
 program. Private ownership, which has until now 
 been usual for our newspapers, has been the occasion 
 of discrimination against the papers, when brethren 
 have said that they are not under obligation to boost 
 a "private enterprise." A substantial injustice is 
 done the papers by this ungracious attitude. The 
 fact is, the papers are nearly always as helpfully the 
 organs of the denomination as they could be if it 
 owned them, while at the same time private brethren 
 bear the burden of financing the enterprise, with
 
 156 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 what fortune the number of demises noted above 
 partly indicates. 
 
 14. A Plea for the Papers. The plea is entered 
 here that Baptists, whether as individuals, churches, 
 Associations, or Conventions, ought to stand by their 
 papers better than they do. Sometimes the paper 
 is so financially handicapped that it cannot render 
 the best service. Instead of criticism, it needs en- 
 couragement and help. It would not be difficult suc- 
 cessfully to maintain against all comers the propo- 
 sition that the denominational paper in each State 
 is rendering a better service than the Baptists de- 
 serve, if due consideration is had of the way they 
 treat it. About one Baptist family in five in the 
 South receives the denominational paper of its State. 
 It is safe to assume that this twenty per cent, of 
 our number gives ninety per cent, of the finan- 
 cial support to the co-operative work of the denomi- 
 nation. The future of all our mission work and of 
 our co-operative impact on society as a Christian 
 body, depends in no small degree upon the strength- 
 ening of the denomination's papers and putting them 
 into the homes of the people. Our Conventions should 
 magnify this commonplace fact and do it in a 
 way that will inspire the brethren to take hold of it 
 as if it was new. Really to grasp it and act upon 
 it in a large and adequate way, would be one of the 
 newest things we could undertake. A pastor and a 
 church who think it too small a thing to magnify 
 the Baptist paper effectively before the people, have 
 already lost something of their group loyalty as 
 Baptists, something of fellowship with the great
 
 WORK OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 157 
 
 spiritual body of which they are a part. To get 
 Baptists to take the denominational paper : Believe 
 in it yourself, that it has an important mission. Put 
 forth the same kind of effort to get others to believe 
 in it that you put forth for other things you regard 
 necessary. That is all, and will succeed. Nothing 
 less will succeed. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1. Tell of the other agencies besides Mission Boards which 
 render mission service. 
 
 2. Describe the kinship between Christian education and 
 missions. 
 
 3. What gave birth to Baptist educational effort in the 
 South? Where did the first effort start? 
 
 4. Describe the relation of Richard Furman to the Baptist 
 educational movement. Give substance of Appendix A. 
 
 5. Describe heroic work done to establish Baptist education. 
 
 6. Tell of the mission value to denominational education. 
 
 7. Tell of the missionary work done by the Sunday School 
 Board. 
 
 8. Describe Missionary Day in the Sunday-school. 
 
 9. Tell of the value of Teacher Training by Sunday School 
 Board experts. 
 
 10. Tell of the great mission work done by the Woman's 
 Missionary Union. What proportion of money given to 
 Home Mission and Foreign Missions last year was from 
 the Missionary Societies? 
 
 11. What is the leading characteristic of the efforts of the 
 Missionary Societies? 
 
 12. Give an estimate of the value of the Baptist press as a 
 mission agency. 
 
 13. Tell of lack of support among Baptists for their papers. 
 Describe the service rendered to missions by the papers. 
 Tell of private ownership and the unjust discrimination 
 from which the papers often suffer in this country.
 
 158 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 14. Give reasons why the preachers and churches ought to 
 stand by the papers more effectively. What proportion 
 of our Baptist families receive a denominational paper? 
 What proportion of the gifts to denominational work come 
 from readers of the papers? What will be necessary in 
 order that Baptists may come to have a conscience for 
 the mission of the papers?
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION. 
 
 1. Twenty Years of Anti-Climax. In 1845 Bap- 
 tists of the South completed the frame work of 
 their denominational organization. For a number 
 of years State organizations had been in operation 
 in the older States and they had gathered experi- 
 ence and strength. The brethren who established 
 them came together in 1845 and framed a general 
 organization for the whole South. This they did 
 with marked wisdom and skill, a fruit of their ex- 
 perience in the State bodies and in the Triennial 
 Convention and of a genius for organization, which 
 abounding Baptist individualism could not thwart. 
 The next sixteen years was a period of encouraging 
 growth in missionary and educational activity on 
 the part of the Baptists. Then came the War be- 
 tween the States. Four years of demoralization and 
 of devestation followed, which swept away Southern 
 institutions and property and brought every re- 
 ligious activity almost to a standstill. It was a 
 period of anti-climax. It began in hopeful growth 
 and ended in desolation. 
 
 2. Statistical Sign Posts. By the beginning of 
 this period the South had thrown off the habiliments 
 of a resourceful but immature pioneer life, and had 
 developed civil and religious institutions suited to 
 the needs of a democratic civilization. In 1845 the
 
 160 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 population was approximately 7,325,000, of whom 
 4,525,000 were whites and 2,800,000 Negro slaves. 
 This advanced to 12,000,000 in 1860, of whom 
 8,000,000 were whites and 4,000,000 Negroes. In 
 1845 the South had a mere beginning of 2,000 miles 
 of railway, which grew to 10,000 by 1860, then ceased 
 to grow and began to disintegrate until 1865. Prop- 
 erty values in the South in 1860 totaled $6,887,000,- 
 000, in 1870 they had fallen off $2,417,000,000, or 
 thirty-five per cent. In addition to economic col- 
 lapse, the whole social structure was overthrown. 
 
 3. Slavery. Slavery was an incubus upon the 
 life of the South in this period, but as a class the 
 Southerners were the best men who ever held their 
 fellow creatures in bondage. Most of the owners 
 were men and women who took seriously their re- 
 sponsibility for the blacks. These opened their 
 churches to the slaves and taught them the religion 
 of Christ. Though the slave system conditioned the 
 entire life of the section, a relatively small portion of 
 the Southern people were slave owners. Of 8,000,- 
 000 whites in 1860 there were only 384,000 slave 
 owners, and 277,000 of these owned fewer than ten 
 slaves and 212,000 fewer than five. Only 10,780 
 owned fifty or more. A large number of the slave 
 owners worked in the fields with their bond-servants. 
 Professor W. L. Fleming, of Louisiana University, 
 from whose article in Vol. V of The South in the 
 Building of the Nation, these figures are taken, de- 
 clares that 6,000,000 whites in the South in 1860 had 
 no interest in slave labor. It is estimated that the 
 whites performed as much farm labor as the blacks
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 161 
 
 in the South, and in addition nearly all the skilled 
 labor. This negatives the reputation made for the 
 South in other sections by industrious writers who 
 fed their readers with slanderous misrepresentations 
 of this section at a time when passion made them 
 ready to believe evil. 
 
 4. Planter and Fanner. The planter owned a 
 thousand acres, more or less, and fifty or more 
 slaves. The farmer usually owned one or two hun- 
 dred acres and sometimes a few slaves. The farmers 
 greatly outnumbered the planters. Dr. W. E. Dodd, 
 Professor of History in Chicago University, de- 
 clares that in any period of the South 's history 
 nine-tenths of the land owners were small proprietors 
 and not planters. The planters were fewer than ten 
 per cent, of the land owners. They kept the reins 
 of government largely in their hands, the small own- 
 er 's political activity being usually confined to cast- 
 ing a vote. Professor Dodd is authority for the state- 
 ment (The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. 
 V, pp. 79, 80) that in 1863 the Confederate Congress 
 passed a law exempting from military service all 
 planters who owned twenty or more slaves. This 
 could not do otherwise than make a breach between 
 classes. It is credited with having been responsible 
 for many farmer-deserters from the army. Inci- 
 dentally it suggests that the New South had better 
 not get too close a view of the Old South life, if 
 we wish to preserve intact the halo of romance with 
 which we have enshrined that period. There is no 
 evidence that the Southern planters to any appre- 
 ciable extent shielded themselves behind this in-
 
 162 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 suiting exemption, but it was unfortunate it was 
 placed on the statute books. 
 
 5. Fiction versus Fact. The novelists, from 
 whose highly flavored and garnished pages most 
 of us have gotten our views of the Old South, have 
 persisted in throwing only the picturesque high 
 lights upon the screen, which is a way to make 
 large book sales, but not to a true portrayal of life. 
 On the one hand they have given us lordly aris- 
 tocratic slave owners galore, with thousands and 
 thousands of acres, and on the other a mass of peo- 
 ple who were low and vulgar and ignorant. Blithely 
 the novelist sets forth this delectable dish of shabby 
 idealism, which ignores about seventy-five per cent, 
 of the people, that stalwart, honest, and patriotic 
 citizenship who made the Old South great and who 
 are the saving element of every civilization that is 
 worthy to be called great. We would not discredit 
 the planters of the antebellum period or minimize 
 the fact that there was much of beauty in the feu- 
 dalistic life of the Old South. But it is desirable to 
 know what the actual life of the South was in which 
 our Baptist sires were so large a saving force, and 
 also to join the rather belated company of observers 
 who prefer to know the facts rather than paint ro- 
 mantic pictures, and to give due credit to that 
 great middle class which has far more than all 
 others combined made great both the Old South 
 and the New South. 
 
 6. Baptist Strength. In 1845 there were 350,000 
 Baptists in the South, of whom 125,000 were Negroes. 
 In 1860 the number had increased to 640,000, thirty-
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 163 
 
 four per cent of whom (about 225,000) were Negroes. 
 The increase was more rapid than that of the popu- 
 lation. The Baptists had their chief strength among 
 the great middle class, though their membership 
 included a number of the wealthy planters in each 
 State. The denomination also reached out its help- 
 ing hand to the poorer class of whites in the back 
 country, many of whom since have grown into power 
 and influence. About ninety per cent, of the popu- 
 lation was rural, and among these Baptists were 
 stronger than any other Christian body, though the 
 Methodists shared with them to a large degree the 
 work and the credit of establishing religious faith 
 among country people, even out to the remote 
 corners. In the cities the Baptists were less aggres- 
 sive. The urban situation was so needy that the 
 Home Board in this period aided in establishing 
 a Baptist church in every State Capital in the South, 
 except one. 
 
 7. State Missions. Following the organization of 
 State bodies, the denomination at once went to work 
 to construct an earnest State Mission program in 
 practically all the States. Apparent exceptions were 
 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, 
 in each of which States, though a State Convention 
 had been in successful operation for many years, no 
 State Mission Board was constituted until after 
 the War. The South Carolina Board was constituted 
 in 1867, the Georgia in 1878, the Alabama in 1875, 
 and the Mississippi in 1873. This does not mean 
 that no mission work was done by the Conventions 
 in their States. Alabama Convention, for instance,
 
 164 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 immediately on organizing sent out earnest mission- 
 aries and sustained them through great trial. It is 
 probably true, however, that State Missions played 
 a less prominent part as an integrating force in these 
 States than in the others. Foreign or Home Missions 
 or Christian education or all together were at first 
 their leading organizing forces. In most of the 
 States the development of the State Board was an 
 evolution. Mission work was undertaken at once, 
 and the agency to manage it was gradually evolved 
 to meet the needs and the growing importance of 
 the work. State Missions had scored blessed vic- 
 tories for the Kingdom before 1845, and from then 
 up to the war period it increased in saving and or- 
 ganizing power yearly. 
 
 8. Passing of the Itinerant. This period wit- 
 nessed the passing of the itinerant preacher from the 
 scheme of Baptist missionary operations. He had 
 occupied a great place in establishing the Baptists. 
 Almost entirely it was he who planted them. A holy 
 restlessness seemed to possess and inspire these 
 apostles of the Bible and the bridle path. A large 
 number of them had no settled pastorate at all ; those 
 who did, almost invariably went on frequent evan- 
 gelistic tours, by preference into settlements where 
 there were no regular religious services. But a new 
 day had dawned, the day of the local pastor, the day 
 of shepherding the sheep as well as saving the lost. 
 The itinerants and not a few of the churches did not 
 welcome the change. With their hearts full of 
 blessed memories of how the peripatetic missionary 
 had made the wilderness dwellers to shout in the joy
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 165 
 
 of a new found faith, these leaders of a passing day 
 thought the new-fangled notion of requiring a mis- 
 sionary to give his entire time to three or four 
 churches was mostly worldly wisdom and an undue 
 restraint of liberty. But the State Boards were, as 
 far as was expedient, obdurate, and the Home Board 
 as rapidly as it could joined in the same policy. 
 About 1850 Secretary H. K. Ellyson of Virginia, em- 
 ploying great patience and tact, won the churches 
 and the brethren who served the Board from the 
 itineracy to the work of missionary pastors. It was 
 not long till the change had taken place through- 
 out the entire South. 
 
 9. Other State Bodies Organize. Excepting 
 Florida, all the State bodies east of the Mississippi 
 organized before 1845. Excepting Missouri, all the 
 bodies west of that river organized later than 1845. 
 This statement takes no account of Southern Illinois, 
 which came into the Southern fraternity after with- 
 drawal from the Northern Baptist body, in 1907, nor 
 does it properly account for New Mexico, which 
 came to the Southern body through change from the 
 North in 1911. The older State organizations fur- 
 nished the co-operative conviction and impetus which 
 created the Southern Baptist Convention, and the 
 Southern Convention through the Home Board recip- 
 rocated by bringing to bear the spirit and liberality 
 of the whole body to establish and build up the 
 State bodies which have organized since 1845. This 
 is one of the greatest and most useful services the 
 Home Mission Board has rendered. Texas, Florida, 
 Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico all
 
 166 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 give unstinted and grateful testimony to this fact. 
 
 10. A New Frontier. The frontier days of the 
 Southwest are measurably familiar to the present 
 generation. A portrayal has been given in earlier 
 chapters of the more-nearly-forgotten frontier days 
 of the older States. Therefore, it is not necessary 
 here to try to reconstruct the life of the early South- 
 west. In the main it was similar to that which had 
 been in the East in the days of subduing the wilder- 
 ness. The elements of individual prowess and of 
 adventure were probably even more in evidence in 
 this second frontier than in the first. Omitting Mis- 
 souri, which was an older State, the area of the 
 Southwest in which Baptists of the South labor, is 
 560,428 square miles, one-fifth larger than all the 
 Southern States east of the Mississippi, the com- 
 bined area of which is 437,783 square miles. In 
 1850 the population of the Southwest region speci- 
 fied was only 1,000,000, while the population of 
 Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, with an area 
 of 458,000 square miles, and larger than all the 
 South east of the Mississippi, was only 274,000. 
 In fact, Oklahoma was without inhabitants, except 
 the Indians and a few lawless whites. 
 
 11. Southwestern Growth. In the fifteen years 
 before the War, as well as afterward, the growth 
 of population was more rapid in the Southwest than 
 in the older States. Still omitting Missouri, the 
 population in the Southwest States increased to 
 1,841,000 by 1860 and 2,122,000 by 1870. Notwith- 
 standing the immature and unstable pioneer con- 
 ditions, Baptists again in the Southwest demon-
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 167 
 
 strated their ability to plant churches and estab- 
 lish the institutions of a Christian civilization in a 
 new and rough country. A handful of 15,000 in 
 1851 grew to 44,000 in 1860, and 162,000 in 1875, in 
 the States of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, 
 and New Mexico. With new and more difficult 
 pioneer conditions to conquer by the gospel than 
 the older States had faced, the young Southwestern 
 Baptists, recruited for the most part from the Old 
 South country, proved themselves strong enough to 
 grow and to make the Southwest a country where 
 Christ should reign in men's hearts and lives. 
 
 12. Texas. Texas Baptists organized their State 
 body in 1848. Texas had organization troubles; at 
 one time had four Conventions. But Texas Bap- 
 tists have demonstrated great ability to compose 
 their differences. From the first that spirit seemed 
 to possess them which Dr. J. B. Gambrell prescribes 
 as a solvent of the spirit of faction among Bap- 
 tists: To be so busy doing the great constructive 
 tasks of the Kingdom that little things shall be 
 forgotten. In many sections of the Southwest Bap- 
 tists suffered less in the days of their beginnings 
 from the conflict of missions and anti-missions than 
 was suffered by the country east of the Mississippi. 
 Perhaps this was not more true anywhere than in 
 Texas. There was to be a day of anti-Board con- 
 flict, but anti-missions was not again to stand forth 
 boldly as a challenging protagonist among Baptists. 
 Henceforth anti-missions was to fight only in cor- 
 ners and from out in the brush. Two years before 
 the State body was organized, the Home Board mis-
 
 168 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 sionaries entered Texas. Education and newspaper 
 interests were given immediate and competent 
 thought. From the first church in 1837, the Bap- 
 tists grew to 125 churches and 4,259 members in 1851, 
 and to 18,727 members in 1860. 
 
 13. Louisiana. Louisiana Baptists organized 
 their Convention in 1848. They had been recruited 
 mainly from the lower tier of States east of the 
 Mississippi. With peculiar difficulties of their own 
 to overcome, like Texas they were largely exempt 
 from anti-mission agitation. In fact, though some 
 may question the statement, it is doubtful whether 
 Baptists in any of the Southwestern States have 
 been, age for age, as much torn with conflict in set- 
 tling the foundations as the older States were. 
 Louisiana, in common with the sister States of the 
 Southwest, received missionary aid in the early years 
 from the older States through the Home Board, and 
 churches built by missionaries regularly become mis- 
 sionary churches. They do not fight missions. Ro- 
 man Catholics from the first had a strong grip in 
 Louisiana and Baptist growth was attained in the 
 face of the opposition and often the persecution of 
 the priests and their misguided followers. The young 
 Convention immediately became busy with missions 
 in its own territory and beyond and in an effort to 
 maintain a Baptist school. 
 
 . 14. Arkansas. Like Texas and Louisiana, Ark- 
 ansas organized its State Convention in 1848. Very 
 early in the nineteenth century Baptists came into 
 Arkansas from Missouri and in 1820 the White 
 River Association was organized in the northeast-
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 169 
 
 era part of the State. Six other Associations had 
 been organized by the time the State body was 
 constituted. The Home Mission Board came to the 
 aid of the churches and the cause grew. There was 
 no notable increase in numbers until between 1860 
 and 1875, in which period the growth was from 
 11,000 to 46,500, 400 per cent. Arkansas Baptists 
 had ahead of them a hard and long conflict with 
 anti-missions, more so than any other State in the 
 young Southwest, perhaps not more so than some 
 of the east-of-Massissippi States at an earlier date. 
 The chief point of difference is that Arkansas Bap- 
 tists had a larger part of this conflict after fram- 
 ing their State organization than any of the older 
 States had. We must for a moment pass over into a 
 later period to observe that there was to develop a 
 brave and consecrated leadership among Arkansas 
 Baptists, sufficient, as their brethren before them in 
 other States had been, to win the victory for the 
 Lord and the Kingdom against anti-missions and 
 anti-co-operation. The guerilla bands of anti-mis- 
 sions are still firing fusillades in Arkansas, just as 
 they did years ago in older States, (and as they do 
 more faintly even now) but Arkansas today is full 
 of promise for Baptists and in many other ways. It 
 is a great State. It has been perhaps the most 
 underestimated commonwealth in the South, but its 
 real worth is coming to be known. In its last stand 
 in Arkansas, as in all its former onslaughts, anti- 
 missions gives its time to fighting the co-operative or- 
 ganizations through which the denomination does 
 mission work, rather than in denying the principle of
 
 170 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 missions. But the practical result unfortunately is 
 the same : non-participation in Kingdom service. 
 
 15. Florida. To keep the chronological sequence, 
 we leave Oklahoma and New Mexico, younger Bap- 
 tist bodies, while we mention Florida Baptists, who 
 organized their State Convention in 1854. As in 
 Louisiana, in Florida the Baptist pioneers found Ro- 
 man Catholicism in charge, though a large part of 
 the population was spiritually destitute. The Florida 
 Association was organized in 1841 or 1842. Two 
 other similar organizations followed and then the 
 State body was organized. The Home Board was 
 doing mission work in Florida for nine years before 
 the State Convention was organized, largely through 
 itinerants, who visited many communities and 
 churches. In 1851 there were 2,600 Baptists. This 
 number doubled by 1860 and grew to 17,300 by 1875. 
 In a later period the body was to grow both in mis- 
 sionary power and in numbers. 
 
 16. Praying and Marking Time. New Mexico 
 Baptists organized in 1900, Oklahoma Baptists in 
 1906, and South Illinois in 1907. All of these belong 
 to a later period of Baptist growth in the South. 
 Sixteen years of splendid Baptist growth and mis- 
 sionary effort, just before the War, was followed by 
 four years of tearing down of everything in the 
 South, except its faith and courage and its amazing 
 Anglo-Saxon resiliency and resourcefulness. At the 
 Associations old men met and prayed, passed reso- 
 lutions and went home. The younger men were in 
 Lee's armies. At the State Conventions pit was 
 much the same. They humbled themselves before
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 171 
 
 God, passed resolutions about the "War, provided for 
 mission work and colportage among the soldiers, and 
 went home. It was no time to talk of lengthening 
 the cords and they were too dazed to see clearly 
 how even to strengthen the stakes. 
 
 17. Wreckage. Endowments for colleges, which 
 had been laboriously collected, melted away like ice 
 in the August sunshine. The Foreign Mission in- 
 terests were kept together, but no increase was even 
 contemplated. Home Missions compressed itself al- 
 most entirely into the task of supporting army mis- 
 sionaries, which was done on a considerable scale and 
 with blessed results. State Missions also greatly cur- 
 tailed its efforts. Some attention was given to Negro 
 missions, even in the darkest hours. Many of the Bap- 
 tist papers suspended publication and the others 
 lived even nearer the brink of financial insolvency 
 than had been their custom. The organized life of 
 Baptists, built up in response to an inner necessity 
 and at the cost of endless and laborious effort, was 
 at a standstill, and their constructive institutional 
 life was rapidly disintegrating before their eyes. 
 Not even the economic life of the South suffered 
 more from the "War than did co-operative missionary 
 effort by religious bodies. These, however, did not 
 lose their faith. Adversity and sorrow brought men 
 to their knees. They could not build for God in 
 institutional effort; but they did enshrine him in 
 the hidden inner man and found thus a richness 
 and courage that was to strengthen the South for 
 the almost superhuman ordeals of Reconstruction 
 which awaited.
 
 172 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1. Give the outstanding characteristics of Southern Baptist 
 life between 1845 and 1865. 
 
 2. Tell of the population in 1845 and 1860. Give the loss 
 of wealth during the war. 
 
 3. Did the slave owners usually take seriously their respon- 
 sibility for the blacks? How many slave owners were 
 there in 1860? How many owned fifty slaves or more? 
 Describe the proportion of actual labor performed by 
 whites and blacks. 
 
 4. Describe the difference between the planter and the 
 farmer and tell of proportion of each. Tell of the ex- 
 emption of planters from military service. 
 
 5. Have the novelists rightly portrayed ante-bellum life? 
 What part did the great middle class play in the Old 
 South? 
 
 6. Tell of the number of Baptists in 1845 and 1860. Among 
 what class did Baptists have their main strength? Tell of 
 the relative strength in country and town. 
 
 7. Tell of State Mission effort during this period. Which 
 of the older States did not organize a State Board till after 
 the War? 
 
 8. Tell of the passing of the itinerant from the Baptist mis- 
 sion system. Describe the new day which dawned and 
 the policy of the Mission Boards. 
 
 9. Describe the impetus given by the older State organiza- 
 tions through the Southern Convention to organizing new 
 State bodies. 
 
 10. Give area of the Southwest, exclusive of Missouri, and 
 give the population in 1850. What was the combined 
 population of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico in 1850? 
 
 11. Describe the growth of the Southwest, exclusive of Mis- 
 souri, in fifteen years immediately before the War. 
 
 12. Give the date and facts about the organization of the 
 Texas State body. 
 
 13. Give the date and facts of the organization of the Louisi- 
 ana Convention.
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND DEVASTATION 173 
 
 14. Give the date and facts of the organization of the Arkan- 
 sas Convention. Describe the conflict in Arkansas with 
 anti-missions. 
 
 15. Give date and facts of the State organization in Florida. 
 
 16. Describe sixteen years of growth and four years of tear- 
 ing down. 
 
 17. Tell of the wreckage brought by the War to religious 
 institutions and efforts.
 
 The South has passed through two periods since 1865 
 which greatly influenced the development of its people. One 
 of these was known in history as the "Reconstruction" times, 
 when desolation and destruction prevailed everywhere, and 
 when a severe lesson of endurance, patience and long suffer- 
 ing was forced upon the entire population of the South. The 
 trial almost reached to the crushing point. 
 
 During the second period, now in force, when great pros- 
 perity possesses the minds and hearts of the Southern people 
 the test of the stability of character is as strong as it was 
 in the first period. How have God's people stood the test? 
 To answer this question let us examine some of the facts 
 that are presenting themselves from the conditions govern- 
 ing and controlling this great prosperity. 
 
 1. The minds of the people have become greatly absorbed 
 by desires to accumulate wealth for gratifying the demands 
 for comfort, social pleasures and luxurious tastes. Many 
 seem to believe that happiness will be found in engaging in 
 such pursuits. 
 
 2. This struggle for material things has so largely filled 
 the minds of many of our people that the spiritual part of their 
 beings has, in many cases, become sadly warned. The pews of 
 the churches are rapidly becoming empty. The automobile 
 blessing is becoming a hindrance to church attendance be- 
 cause of the temptation to spend the Sabbath morning in 
 the country during the time that God's houses are open for 
 His worship. This factor has become a serious interference 
 with the establishment, growth and development of churches 
 throughout the South, especially in the cities. 
 
 3. Society has become feverish in the search on the part 
 of many of its devotees for happiness through questionable 
 ways pursued by them. 
 
 4. Although the banks are prosperous through the savings 
 of the people, God's treasury is often empty, because of the 
 small contributions coming to the churches for benevolence, 
 and the cause of Christ is suffering everywhere. Souls are 
 calling out for salvation, and there is not sufficient money in 
 the treasuries of the churches with which to pay the cost 
 of sending the gospel to them in all parts of the world. 
 
 P. H. MELL.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION. 
 
 1. Reconstruction. The situation created by the 
 Reconstruction Period in the South was so bad that, 
 if the War itself had continued to 1874, it could 
 scarcely have retarded the growth of civil and re- 
 ligious institutions more. In some respects Recon- 
 struction was worse than the War. If Lincoln had 
 lived, Reconstruction would have been vastly easier 
 than it was. In 1865 nearly every one of the South- 
 ern States adopted the Thirteenth Amendment and 
 provided for the Negro franchise. President John- 
 son followed Lincoln as President and seemed de- 
 sirous to carry out the pacific and statesmanlike pur- 
 poses of the fallen leader, but there was a large 
 element of fanatics at the North who would be 
 satisfied with no scheme of Reconstruction that did 
 not humiliate and show contempt for their fallen 
 foe. The perverse doings of these men, whom the 
 stress of the times had brought to the fore, were 
 responsible for setting back for at least ten years 
 the date when the real Reconstruction of the South 
 could begin. 
 
 2. A Program of Folly and Hate. The confusion 
 and helplessness created by the mad folly of the so- 
 called reconstructive measures for the South, foisted 
 on the prostrate section by the party which became 
 dominate in Congress in 1867, had a pronounced and
 
 176 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 far-reaching effect in delaying the recuperation of 
 the religious forces in that section. The policies of 
 Lincoln and of Johnson were rejected. Those of 
 Sumner and Stevens were adopted. The ignorant 
 ex-slaves were given the franchise and it was taken 
 away from the ex-Confederate soldiers. Followed a 
 bacchanalian spectacle of legislation in the Southern 
 States by unprincipled carpet-bag whites and 
 ignorant Negroes, which was ruinous and utterly de- 
 moralizing to religious, economic, and social prog- 
 ress. The South Carolina legislature had eighty- 
 eight blacks and sixty-seven whites ; the whole mem- 
 bership of the Alabama legislature paid less than 
 $100 in taxes. Capital to the amount of $2,000,000,- 
 000 had disappeared in the slaves and the South 
 confronted the stupendous task of readjusting its 
 social and economic system to the condition of their 
 freedom. But this herculean problem paled into 
 smallness by the side of that which grew out of the 
 supreme folly and unpardonable viciousness of the 
 dominant party in national politics in putting a race 
 late from jungle life at the helm of institutions 
 created by and adapted to the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 3. A Saturnalian Orgy. Federal agents fol- 
 lowed the army of occupation over the South tak- 
 ing away from ex-Confederates whatever property 
 they had left, "confiscating" it. A heavy tax was 
 put upon cotton, payable to the conqueror. The bad- 
 Negro and worse-white legislature in South Caro- 
 lina in one session spent $95,000 for furniture, $80,- 
 000 of which went to furnish the homes of the mem- 
 bers. In Louisiana the legislative expenses of one
 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION 177 
 
 session were more than $900,000. Vast sums were 
 voted to build railroads, which were never built, 
 though the money for them disappeared by the ma- 
 nipulation of theiving carpet-baggers. And so it 
 went all over the South. Under the leadership of 
 unprincipled carpet-bag whites, the Negroes became 
 impudent and disrespectful to their former masters. 
 The Kuklux Klan was the only institution that really 
 preserved public order. And, though necesary, it 
 was extra-legal and demoralizing. It was from this 
 saturnalian debauch of jungle-control, propped up 
 by bayonets and unscrupulous adventurers over in- 
 stitutions of the Anglo-Saxon, that the religious and 
 moral manhood of Southern whites had to rescue the 
 South. 
 
 4. The South Is Loyal. The North, be it said 
 with satisfaction, was not all as perverse, even in the 
 hour of victory, as was the dominant political party 
 there. It was the resentment of the quiet better 
 and sensible class at the North which in the end 
 came to the aid of the South and helped to save 
 it from the demoniacal folly of those who seemed to 
 desire utterly to destroy this great section and its 
 great people. And it is also to be said with still 
 more satisfaction that the responsible thought of 
 the North today is ashamed of that awful program 
 of Reconstruction and repudiates it. Though we 
 cannot use mild words to characterize the collossal 
 perversity of the Reconstruction program, which 
 did far more to embitter the South than the War did, 
 yet the South feels no bitterness now, and our peo- 
 ple desire to serve and strengthen the whole nation,
 
 178 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 and they love the whole nation with a passion which 
 no man is capable of feeling who would treat an 
 honorable foe as the South was treated in the Recon- 
 struction. 
 
 5. The Environment of Religious Effort. The 
 only explanation the writer need make of this brief 
 peep here at Reconstruction history, is to say that 
 it formed the environment in which the religious 
 bodies of this section had to take hold of their task 
 of reconstruction. To say which is to offer an expla- 
 nation that would adequately account for complete 
 failure on their part. But they did not have com- 
 plete failure. Pushed to the wall, the Southerners 
 through the Kuklux Klan used intimidation as a 
 means to good order and the writer knows that at 
 least in his own native State ballot box "stuffing" 
 was practised. Demoralizing as such practices were, 
 the preachers had no heart to rebuke them and were 
 powerless to stop them, if they had had. In most of 
 the States for several years after the "War the reports 
 at the Baptist Associations complain of a falling off 
 in piety and an increase in pleasure seeking and 
 worldliness, and at both Associations and Conven- 
 tions the brethren prayed much, surveyed the field, 
 counseled about meeting needs they had almost 
 no means of meeting, and went home. 
 
 6. State Missions. In some of the States State 
 Missions showed a remarkable growth immediately 
 after the War, only to be retarded with everything 
 else by the financial pressure which came in the 
 early seventies. North Carolina and Kentucky were 
 particularly devoted to local evangelization. In the
 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION 179 
 
 History of North Carolina Baptist Convention, Dr. 
 Livingston Johnson says: "In 1866 the churches 
 exhibited an interest and spirit of self-sacrifice un- 
 exampled in our former history. Often contributions 
 were thrust into the hands of the State Secretary 
 quietly and privately, and the donors would turn 
 away with throbbing hearts and streaming eyes." 
 The perverse Reconstruction program was rapidly 
 running the South on to the rocks of bankruptcy 
 and in some respects the pressure in 1870 was worse 
 than in 1865. It was five years later before the 
 hand of power ruthlessly used was taken from the 
 neck of the South and there really came a chance 
 to make substantial religious progress. 
 
 7. Poverty of Resources. In the meantime, the 
 State Conventions projected and sought i/o maintain 
 State Missions and the Southern Baptist Convention 
 maintained its organization and did all it could for 
 Home and Foreign Missions. In 1870 $22,500 was 
 raised from the churches for Home Missions and 
 $22,000 for Foreign Missions. In 1875 the amounts 
 given to these objects were $23,000 and $33,000, 
 and in 1885 to $71,000 and $64,000. The Baptists of 
 the South were in poverty. Every educational in- 
 stitution they had was in great need of financial 
 assistance. Endowments had disappeared and pre- 
 viously-pledged aid failed because there was noth- 
 ing with which to pay. The State Mission need was 
 evident; it fairly shouted from the housetops. 
 Bravely the denomination through its organized 
 agencies addressed itself to all these tasks. Though 
 it had little to work with, it accomplished wonders
 
 180 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 with the little it had. Year after year came of 
 urgent pleas for causes worthy enough and needy 
 enough to make one weep; year after year of small 
 response, but of a response from faithful hearts, 
 which were touched by the needs of Zion and de- 
 sired to see her walls builded up round about. 
 
 8. Harmony and Patience. Through all those 
 years of prayer and of hope deferred there sounded 
 no note of despair, with perhaps two exceptions. 
 One of these was when in Atlanta in 1879, the 
 question of uniting with Northern Baptists was dis- 
 cussed before the Southern Baptist Convention, and 
 the other occurred three years later in Greenville, 
 South Carolina, when there was talk of doing away 
 with the Home Mission Board. Both propositions 
 were rejected promptly and decisively. When all is 
 considered, it is remarkable how the Home Mission 
 Board and the State Mission Boards have so regular- 
 ly conducted their work in the South in perfect har- 
 mony. A study of the experience of other Christian 
 bodies with their general and divisional agencies 
 for Domestic Missions hardly affords a parallel to 
 the good understanding and co-operation of Home 
 and State Mission Boards of Southern Baptists. Still, 
 it ought to be noted that this harmony was not abso- 
 lutely without break. Both before and during the 
 present period the question arose in some States 
 of turning over the State work to the Home Board, 
 and in others of doing the State work and letting 
 the Home Board severely alone. Better counsel 
 prevailed in each case and both the State and general
 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION 181 
 
 agencies for saving the South were maintained and 
 told to work together in harmony. 
 
 9. "Agencies." "Agencies" was for many 
 years a regularly recurring subdivision in the 
 Foreign and Home Board annual reports, and also 
 in those of the whilom Bible Board. These agencies 
 consisted of a number of preachers employed by 
 the Boards to itinerate in order to stir up the pure 
 consciences of the brethren by way of remembrance, 
 particularly to take collections for the employer 
 Board, after as powerful an address as might be 
 about its work. The General Boards believed these 
 agents necessary, and they certainly did greatly 
 increase the collections. The State bodies in general 
 seemed to get pretty tired of the agents, and there 
 came a time when these had to cease their activities. 
 The severe straits of the General Boards after the 
 War once more turned their thoughts longingly 
 toward field agents as an aid in the efforts to finance 
 the work, but the proverty-stricken States and the 
 urgent cries of intra-State needs that must be sup- 
 plied, made the agent for a General Board have an 
 unpleasant time of it. The day of the money-collect- 
 ing agent was about done and the day of the 
 educational agent or intensive missionary was not 
 to dawn for about three decades. 
 
 10. Helping the Negroes. Baptists of the South 
 throughout the life of the Republic have shown more 
 interest in the evangelization of the Negroes than 
 any other Christian body, though excellent service 
 has been rendered by others, especially the Presby- 
 terians and Methodists. During the period now
 
 182 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 under review Baptists continued their work for the 
 Negroes. The fact of the large predominance of 
 the Baptist faith among the blacks today is mainly 
 the result of the large and unfailing missionary con- 
 cern of the Baptists for the blacks. Enough recog- 
 nition has not been given to the Southern Christian 
 bodies for their loving helpfulness to the freed slaves 
 during the War and after its close. With the country 
 in ruins and literally everything to reconstruct and 
 revitalize, one of the first concerns of the State 
 Boards and of the Home Board was to look out for 
 the religious weal of the blacks. Missionaries were 
 sent among them ; they were helped in building their 
 churches when they drew out of the white churches. 
 The land on which their houses of worship were 
 built was usually given by some white friend, and 
 also most of the lumber used for building. The con- 
 sistent friendliness and patient helpfulness of the 
 Christian people of the South to the Negroes, at a 
 time whene the Northern politicians and newspapers 
 ignored and discounted that friendship and per- 
 versely sought to inflame the blacks against the 
 whites, was an ample refutation of the gifted and 
 impassioned but essentially erroneous representa- 
 tions of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. This 
 book had made many a soldier in the Union army, 
 who did not really know what religion is, imagine 
 he was fighting a holy warfare against cruel and in- 
 human whites. 
 
 11. The Blessing of "Freedom." Fearful as was 
 that War and as many and grievous as were the 
 blunders connected with it, it greatly simplified the
 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION 183 
 
 work of making and maintaining in this section a 
 really Christian civilization. We are now far enough 
 removed from 1865 to appreciate how greatly God 
 blessed the South in taking away from it the clog of 
 slavery. There is not an agency of missionary up- 
 lift today whose task would not be far harder if 
 slavery had endured. Though the ugliness of the 
 anti-social fact of holding men in bondage was less 
 in the South than ever else in history, and though 
 there was often the beauty of affection and loyalty 
 between owner and owned, the fact of slavery had 
 in it that which was contrary to the genius of Chris- 
 tianity and which could not but tend to lessen the 
 dominance of the spirit of Christ in Southern 
 society. Moreover, the continuance of the institution 
 would have meant the perpetuation and strengthen- 
 ing of a landed aristocracy and the impoverishment 
 of the masses of the white people. Though the re- 
 lease of the slaves came in connection with the 
 events which brought fearful loss to the religious 
 life and of missionary activities in the South, those 
 activities to-day are much larger and more efficient 
 than they could have been if the Negro race had 
 remained in bondage. 
 
 12. Faithfulness in Small Things. A statistical 
 showing of State and Home Mission results in the 
 period from 1865 to 1885 would not look impressive 
 to our twentieth century eyes. But it was a period 
 of great faith, untiring patience, and unfailing de- 
 votion. Organization was maintained, valuable ex- 
 perience was gained, ideals were developed and fixed 
 into determined purpose. Moreover, large tangible
 
 184 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 results were attained. The missionaries of the 
 Boards served hundreds of needy churches as pas- 
 tors. In each State these workers led the people in 
 building and improving scores of houses of worship. 
 They brought thousands of converts into the 
 churches. They challenged the spirit of worldliness 
 and license which fifteen years of upheaval had left, 
 and brought it into subjection to the spirit of right- 
 eousness. They did an immense deal to 'equip Bap- 
 tists for the enlarged program which they are now 
 following. History gives small heed to the under- 
 lying spiritual facts which gird civilization with 
 strength, but it is a fact tremendously worthy of 
 record that the missionary efforts of Baptists and 
 other Christian bodies in that period made possible 
 the vigorous and triumphant South of today. Up 
 to 1885 Baptist Missions in the South had abund- 
 antly justified itself. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER X. 
 
 1. Compare the Reconstruction with the War. Tell of the 
 death of Lincoln and what followed in Reconstruction. 
 
 2. Give the sad picture of the program of folly and hate 
 toward the South. 
 
 3. Describe the saturnalian orgy in Southern State legislatures. 
 Tell of the Kuklux Klan. 
 
 4. Give mitigating facts about the North. Is the South loyal 
 today ? 
 
 5. What chance was there for missions to succeed in such 
 an environment? What did the Associations and Con- 
 ventions do? 
 
 6. Tell of the revival of State Missions. 
 
 7. Describe the poverty of resources and give the receipts 
 of various Boards.
 
 PARTIAL PARALYSIS AND RECUPERATION 185 
 
 8. Tell of two happenings which indicated Baptists had 
 almost despaired. Describe the harmony with which the 
 Home and State Boards worked. 
 
 9. Tell of the agents sent out by Home and Foreign Boards 
 during this period. Were they approved by the State 
 Boards? 
 
 10. Tell of the faithful aid given by white Christian bodies 
 to the Negroes. Tell of the misrepresentation of the facts 
 by some people of the North. 
 
 11. Has the passing of slavery been a blessing to the South, 
 and in what ways? 
 
 12. What was the outstanding characteristic of the organized 
 life of Baptists during this period? What of the value 
 of their faithfulness to our present efficiency?
 
 If others cannot see as they do, then Baptists must act 
 as they see and not as others would see for them. They 
 can do none other than stand true to their convictions as 
 to scriptural teaching. They are perfectly willing to work 
 with other Christian people, so far as they can do so without 
 discounting their own convictions. If they pause at any point 
 in the matter of co-operation, it is because they have gone 
 as far as they see their way to go. They do not seek sep- 
 aration for the sake of being separated, but when they 
 reach the point at which they cannot co-operate without the 
 rejection of some scriptural teaching, then they feel it is 
 better to separate than to sacrifice the truth. They would 
 like to go all their way with the entire Christian host, but 
 if in doing so they are to throw overboard any scriptural 
 doctrine or to allow others to prescribe for them geographic 
 limitations within which they are to confine their work, then 
 with quiet soul and gracious courtesy they will have to bow 
 themselves out and work alone in the Master's name. Over- 
 tures for co-operation which insidiously look to the under- 
 mining of any distinctive principles for which the Baptists 
 stand, must be treated with the utmost courtesy but at the 
 same time must be rejected with the utmost candor. 
 
 Let Baptists stand as those who do not doubt. They must 
 not be pushed off their ground by the rush of the crowd. 
 Let them co-operate to the limit of their liberty, but let them 
 not sacrifice the truth in order to go with the multitude. If 
 their contention is true it can not be displeasing to their 
 Lord, and if they must suffer in order to be true, let them 
 be true and rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer. 
 William E. Hatcher, D.D., L.L.D., in The Home Mission Task.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS. 
 
 1. Figures and the Facts of Life. A brilliant 
 friend, seeing in The Home Field an advance notice 
 of this book, wrote, apropos of its announced his- 
 torical method: "You are on the right track. We 
 need facts, not sentiment; information, not exhorta- 
 tion." Encouraged by this approval, the author is 
 still impressed that the fact-method of presentation 
 has distinct limitations, even when the audience is 
 that select group who care to study the progress of 
 missions and religious efficiency. Historical facts 
 are a fine, in fact the only, medium through which 
 to precipitate the spirit of a people who have gone 
 before and of their institutions. Yet it is the spirit 
 and the life we are after. Exhortation and senti- 
 ment are almost useless to this end; but facts and 
 information, to be useful, must be selected and inter- 
 preted with discrimination and skill. The chief fact 
 receptacles in which the Mission Boards have given 
 an account of their stewardship are statistical tables, 
 resolutions, and reports. To the average reader these 
 are unavailable and uninteresting. Nevertheless 
 they lie at the base of any sound philosophy of our 
 progress as a missionary body. They are the stakes 
 which mark the boundaries of the work of Zion. 
 Much tedious exploration lies back of the contents 
 of this chapter. We shall try to put clothes on our
 
 188 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 facts, though the costuming will require more space 
 than the naked truth which it seeks to make attrac- 
 tive. Even with sympathetic interpretation, the 
 facts of life cannot be pressed into words, and still 
 less can spiritual facts be squeezed into figures. 
 
 2. Boards and Baptists. The Baptist Mission 
 Board in each State is the central organization 
 through which the spiritual potentialities of the com- 
 monwealth head up for mission service in that State. 
 It also more fully than any other State agency ex- 
 presses the concern of the supporting body for inter- 
 State activities. The Home Mission Board is the 
 creature of the general denominational body, through 
 which it addresses itself to a great task which is 
 measurably the same in principle as that of the 
 State Board and often coalesces with it. Through 
 the two agencies each State looks upon and serves 
 its own needs and also the needs of the whole South. 
 Back of these Boards are the Associations and 
 churches. The Boards are servants of the denomi- 
 nation and their greatness is measured by the ef- 
 ficiency with which they gather up and express the 
 spiritual life, the faith and hope, the prayers and 
 sacrifices, the needs and aspirations of the churches. 
 
 3. Autonomy and Go-operation. Seventeen State 
 Boards in as many commonwealths, one Home Mis- 
 sion Board in the central city of Atlanta, Georgia. 
 These make up the simple organization machinery 
 through which Baptists of the South seek to save 
 their own country. The State and Home Boards 
 have no authority over each other, though they work 
 largely in the same territory, except that the big-
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 189 
 
 sister Board at Atlanta never acts in the home State 
 of a State Board without its approval. True to the 
 Baptist spirit, the biggest and farthest away is the 
 servant of all. Others than Baptists would expect 
 the Home Board as the general agency to be rein- 
 forced by some kind of ecclesiastical authority over 
 the State units of the denomination. But it is the 
 other way around with Baptists. The Home Board 
 has much prestige and influence with the body which 
 it serves, all that it needs; but this it has entirely 
 from the spirit of co-operation and fellowship in ser- 
 vice which exists among the churches of the de- 
 nomination, and which expresses itself in support- 
 ing and honoring the agency which serves their will 
 in missionary effort. A similar principle applies in 
 the relation of the churches to the State Boards. 
 
 4. A Beneficial Relation. Free co-operation, 
 without ecclesiastical authority as a prop, has abund- 
 antly justified itself as a dependable plan for the 
 mission work of Baptists. The benefits of co-opera- 
 tion have been incalculable, but hardly greater than 
 the separate autonomy of each State body. South- 
 ern Baptists have evangelized their territory more 
 thoroughly than any other Christian body in Amer- 
 ica has evangelized its territory. If asked to ac- 
 count for this superior success, we would as one of 
 its chief causes point to our complete State auton- 
 omy, coupled with the hearty and dependable spirit 
 of inter-State co-operation, which latter has no trace 
 of centralized control. The wonderful success 
 of the Home Board as a missionary agency and its 
 absolute lack of a particle of authority over any
 
 190 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 State Board or Association or church, are a concrete 
 proof that the spirit of co-operation is great enough 
 to hold God's people together in Kingdom service 
 without any central power. 
 
 5. The Churches. Back of the Boards are the 
 churches. Most of them are modest organizations, 
 unknown to fame, far out in the open country. But 
 in our Baptist thought each struggling church in a 
 real way ranks above the Mission Board, which sends 
 out to the little church calls for money and after 
 awhile sends out reports of the blessed work the 
 money accomplished. There are the churches, about 
 24,500. About 9,000 of them are non-participant in 
 mission work. Nearly three-fourths of them meet for 
 worship only once a month ! But in many of these, 
 as well as in the smaller number which are larger 
 and worship oftener, there is the spirit of co-opera- 
 tive missions, and in all of them there is the spirit of 
 the Lord Jesus. On almost every hill in the South 
 and in almost every green valley, silhouetted against 
 the skyline in almost every view across the great 
 plains, and thrusting up its tower toward heaven 
 amid the bustle of almost every town and hamlet, 
 is one of these churches. There they are, and in 
 Christ we are theirs to serve, and yet we of the 
 Boards and the newspapers write and they do not 
 read. We speak and they do not hear. We cry and 
 they do not heed. We plan and devise and deliver 
 ourselves of perfectly pure and sane missionary phil- 
 osophy, and to many of them it is all as an unknown 
 tongue babbling murmurously in the distance. Yet 
 this mass of smaller churches, many of them strug-
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 191 
 
 gling for very existence, contains the larger part of 
 our spiritual resources as a denomination. Have we 
 failed to reach many of them with the gospel of 
 service and enlargement? They are still our breth- 
 ren, holding things which we hold to a far greater 
 extent than they differ from the rest of us. Are we 
 impatient with them? It is a tacit confession of 
 unfitness to serve them in that which they most need, 
 that loving helpfulness which goes to them and 
 shows them the way to better things. As a group 
 the non-participant churches are nearer to God than 
 we will be if we are sensorious with them and in- 
 different or blind to the greatness of the opportunity 
 which is ours to relate helpfully to even the least 
 of them our every missionary agency for serv- 
 ing the South. A part of this service will be to get 
 them to give money for missions, but only the sec- 
 ondary part. The primary and essential part is to 
 show them how to do better the undone job of 
 spiritualizing the life of their own communities. 
 
 6. Thirty Years of Growth. Between 1885 and 
 1915 Southern Baptists increased from 997,500 to 
 2,588,600, or 140 per cent. The number of churches 
 increased from 14,102 to 24,338 and the Associations 
 from 570 to 902. 2,806,000 were added to the 
 churches by baptism; so that the denomination has 
 made a net increase equal to fifty-six per cent, of 
 the persons baptized into the fellowship of the 
 churches. In this thirty years mission contribu- 
 tions have increased from $266,269 to $1,759,821, or 
 551 per cent. Since 1890 the value of the church 
 property of the denomination has increased from
 
 192 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 $18,000,000 to $57,000,000. These figures show won- 
 derful growth. 
 
 7. Thirty Years of Mission Work. What part 
 have the State and the Home Boards had in this 
 splendid progress? Making due allowance for re- 
 sults in which both the State and Home Boards par- 
 ticipated and which both reported, 740,000 baptisms 
 were reported by missionaries of the Boards, twenty- 
 six per cent, of the entire number. In thirty yearg 
 the State Boards have organized 4,500 churches, 
 forty-five per cent, of the entire increase for the 
 period. Home Missions aided in a part of this work 
 and organized several hundred churches independ- 
 ently, not here included. Reports from State Sec- 
 retaries on the entire number of churches aided by 
 State Missions, Home Missions participating in many 
 States, are too incomplete to admit of exact state- 
 ment, but they are Complete enough to indicate that 
 not fewer than 10,000 churches have been aided by 
 Mission Boards within the last thirty years. The 
 number is probably greater than that. Within that 
 period the Mississippi State Board aided 729 
 churches, and within the last twenty years the Texas 
 Board organized 2,187 churches, about half the 
 entire number now in the State. 
 
 8. Thirty Years of Mission Money. During the 
 period $8,307,000 has been raised for State Missions 
 and $4,658,000 for Home Missions, or a total of 
 $12,965,000. Hundreds of thousands of this amount 
 went to erect church buildings and to the work in 
 Cuba and Panama and to the Mountain School work. 
 But, without subtracting this from the total before
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 193 
 
 making the estimate, the figures indicate that a new 
 church has been planted for every $1,000 expended 
 and a convert baptized for every $17.50 expended. 
 The figures shout in trumpet tones in token of the 
 efficiency of our Baptist missionary agencies. Let 
 him who can think from figure facts to spiritual 
 values do so, and speak to this Southern Baptist 
 people that they may know what great things God 
 is doing for his people and for his religion through 
 our missionary agencies. 
 
 9. From 1885 to 1900. It is a day of prepared 
 foods for the intellectual and emotional appetites, 
 as well as the physical. The figures in this chapter 
 have been laboriously and painstakingly prepared 
 by the co-operation of the State Secretaries, who are 
 some of the busiest and most responsible men in 
 our denomination, but they are strong meat and not 
 pre-digested. The student is begged to digest some 
 more paragraphs of figures. Let us divide the last 
 thirty years at the year 1900, so as to have two 
 periods of fifteen years each. The first fifteen years 
 will be found to cover a time of strengthening 
 through patient, fruitful service. The Boards gained 
 much experience in serving, which would be needed 
 and severely tested in the next fifteen years. It was 
 not a period characterized by growth in missionary 
 contributions. In 1885 $71,000 was given to Home 
 Missions and in 1899 only $62,000. In 1885 $138,200 
 was given to State Missions and in 1899 only $130,- 
 000. Foreign Mission gifts fared better, advancing 
 from $64,000 to $108,000. The total for the three 
 agencies was $293,000 in 1885, and $300,000 fifteen
 
 194 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 years later, almost the same. But the agencies had 
 increased in efficiency during this time. The results 
 in baptisms and churches organized in the South in 
 1899 were about double the number reported in 
 1885. 
 
 10. Day of Wheel and Machine. The twentieth 
 century opened with power machinery, means of 
 inter-communication and transportation, and other 
 inventions for the increased material comfort and 
 power of man, fully arrived and installed. That 
 meant the setting up of life conditions which were 
 at greater variance from those of the fifty years be- 
 fore than the conditions of 1850 differed from the 
 year when Jamestown was settled. A rapidly re- 
 volving wheel is respectfully suggested as an appro- 
 priate emblem of American civilization today. As 
 never before this wheel has turned within the last 
 fifteen years. It never before revolved so rapidly 
 or in so many places or so noisily and greedily. It 
 never before made for man so many opportunities, 
 both good and bad, nor put on men so severe a 
 test as to whether human character is strong enough 
 to regulate the machine which human ingenuity has 
 invented, or whether the machine shall become a 
 demon to maim and devour men's souls. The moral 
 and spiritual forces of society never before had such 
 an involved and difficult task of readjustment put 
 upon them. As the rushing automobile, when its 
 cushioned but devouring wheels career through a 
 pool of water, sends a dozen streams of spatter over 
 the landscape, without the powerful engine or its 
 speed-intoxicated driver considering, so the new day
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 195 
 
 of the revolving wheel and the throbbing machine 
 throws out into civilization scores of uncharted prob- 
 lems, each of which is a challenge and sometimes 
 almost a sneering dare to every uplift force which 
 serves humanity. 
 
 11. From 1900 to 1915. How have the missionary 
 agencies of Southern Baptists demeaned themselves 
 as servants in the face of the New Civilization? If 
 they had been demoralized by the pressing and dis- 
 cordant clamor of new and uncharted problems, and 
 if, facing such stress, they had for some years lost 
 their poise and efficiency, the cause was great enough 
 to excuse the lapse. But it was not so. It is dif- 
 ficult with convincing confidence to prognosticate 
 what the future historian from his favored perch for 
 measuring perspectives will say of our times. But 
 we may with perfect assurance prophesy that he 
 will declare that this was a period in which Bap- 
 tists began to awaken to the greatness and reality 
 of the obligation which was on them to take and 
 hold the South for Christ. The people have not 
 quailed or become confused before the racing wheel 
 and the soulless machine, nor any of the stern prob- 
 lems which power machinery has with insensate in- 
 difference thrust upon society. The answer of 
 Southern Baptists to the challenge may be summed 
 up from such facts as the following: In State Mis- 
 sion work during the last fifteen years they have 
 raised and expended $6,207,000, instead of $2,100,- 
 000, the amount from 1885 to 1899, a three-fold in- 
 crease. In Home Missions they have raised and 
 spent $3,684,000, instead of $974,000, for the fifteen
 
 196 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 years preceding, a four-fold increase. For both they 
 have raised $9,891,000, instead of $3,074,000, in the 
 preceding fifteen years. 
 
 12. Wonderful Increase in Results. It would be 
 expected that the severer strains on the moral forces 
 of society for the last fifteen years would have had 
 the effect of lessening the harvest reaped by the 
 missionaries sent out in the South by the Baptists. 
 Such has not been the case. Trained in efficiency 
 and practical wisdom by the quiet years which pre- 
 ceded, the mission agencies of Baptists grappled 
 with the heart of each new problem. In the face of 
 not a little subtle misrepresentation from the out- 
 side, which sought to demoralize them, they quietly 
 separated the wheat from the abundant propaganda 
 chaff of each new problem, and prosecuted their 
 work with such added vigor and good judgment 
 that it showed an increase not only equal to the 
 brave and unprecedented increase of support from 
 the churches, but somewhat beyond it. In the first 
 fifteen years, after deducting twenty-five per cent, 
 for duplicates, State and Home Missions reported 
 160,800 baptisms; during the second period, with 
 duplicates not counted, they secured 579,400, an in- 
 crease of 260 per cent., while there was an increase 
 of 221 per cent, in monetary receipts for the same 
 period. Also during the last fifteen years a far 
 larger amount of intensive or development mission 
 work has been done with this money, which cannot 
 be shown in brief concrete statement. 
 
 13. New Work. During the last fifteen years 
 Southern Baptists have made a beginning of cul-
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 197 
 
 tural or intensive missions. All missions is cul- 
 tural, but before this period the cultural idea was 
 incidental, and was not seriously set forth as a 
 Kingdom service which ranked as a sister to evan- 
 gelism. The Home Board and one or two State 
 Boards had felt their way into helping a few moun- 
 tain mission schools, but that was all. Neither the 
 Home Board or the State Boards had in a large way 
 sought to translate into missionary service our 
 Lord's word: "Teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever." Within the last fifteen years 
 gratifying progress has been made. In eight 
 States the State and Home Boards conduct to- 
 gether definite intensive missionary effort for the 
 churches. In some States much has been done 
 through associational missionaries and other special 
 efforts. In thirty-four mountain schools and six 
 foreigner schools the Home Board is developing the 
 minds of youth in an atmosphere saturated with the 
 spirit of service. In addition the Sunday School 
 Board has entered this field through teacher train- 
 ing, and in many places a new trial is being made 
 of the one-day-at-a-place campaign of speeches full 
 of high idealism, a method which usefully touches 
 the hem of the garment of intensive missions, but 
 which is in danger of adding to the difficulty of 
 teaching our people that intensive missions is a lov- 
 ing, patient helpfulness which shows them how, and 
 not simply the giving of a quick and large dose of 
 fine idealism to folk who already have more than 
 they have digested or learned to practice. The prime 
 essential in helping the tardy churches is to aid each
 
 198 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 of them to do the whole job of saving its own com- 
 munity and of imparting to its life an adequate 
 spiritual dynamic. Anything less is likely to be more 
 of a campaign for missions than a general work of 
 enlargement. 
 
 14. Present Strength of the Boards. Striking 
 as is the growth shown by the two periods of fifteen 
 years, it is even greater than that. State Mission 
 receipts have increased from $71,000 in 1899 to $622,- 
 500 in 1914, nearly 800 per cent. The receipts for 
 State Missions in 1914 were nearly one-third as large 
 as the entire receipts from 1885 to 1899. Home Mis- 
 sions has shown a like remarkable growth, having 
 increased from $72,000 in 1899 to $387,000 in 1915, 
 440 per cent. Within the last three years Southern 
 Baptists have given $128,000 more to Home Missions 
 than they did during the fifteen years from 1885 to 
 1899. Equally impressive are the results of the 
 work. The Home Board in 1914 and 1915 reported 
 9,000 more converts baptized than it did between 
 1885 and 1899, and in 1914 the State Boards re- 
 ported more than one-fourth as many baptisms as 
 in the fifteen years beginning in 1885. After count- 
 ing out baptisms reported in duplicate by the Home 
 and State Boards last year, and also the Negro bap- 
 tisms and those in Cuba and Panama, the Home and 
 State Board missionaries performed 65,000 baptisms, 
 which was forty-three per cent, of the entire num- 
 ber of baptisms reported by the churches for the 
 same year. 
 
 15. Mission Churches Support Missions. Churches 
 established by State and Home Missions are almost
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 199 
 
 invariably supporters of missions and of all the or- 
 ganized work of the denomination. Diligent in- 
 quiry from State Secretaries, who have had better 
 opportunity than any one else to make observations, 
 has elieted the remarkable information that not less 
 than sixty per cent, of all the money expended for 
 all mission work today comes from churches which 
 were in their time of need aided by State Missions 
 and often by Home Missions. North Carolina, Ar- 
 kansas, and Georgia report sixty-six per cent, as the 
 amount of mission money which comes from such 
 churches, Virginia and Kentucky seventy-five per 
 cent, and Florida fifty per cent. Other States did 
 not report. These estimates have been made by 
 brethren who know the situation. Apparently the 
 average would be more than sixty-six per cent., but 
 at sixty per cent, we have the amazing result of 
 crediting $1,000,000 of the $1,700,000 given last year 
 to missions, to churches which were organized or 
 nursed into strength by State and Home Missions. 
 Though the result can only be reached through ap- 
 proximation, it is nevertheless trustworthy. It con- 
 stitutes an appeal which ought to impress men more 
 than the most eloquent speech. 
 
 16. Conserving Sound Doctrine. There are cer- 
 tain incidental ways in which Home and State Mis- 
 sions render most important service to the denom- 
 ination, outside of the specific tasks committed to 
 them. One of these is the conservation of sound 
 doctrine. It is not theirs to teach theology, but 
 through their interpretation of the denomination's 
 spirit, through the grasp which the spiritual body
 
 200 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 gets on all and particularly upon the most needy of 
 its parts in the work of these Boards, Baptists have 
 a powerful balance wheel to conserve the truths 
 which makes them a distinct body. So consistently 
 and influentially have the Boards stood for the 
 principles of Baptists that some modern protagonists 
 of denominational union have beheld and understood 
 and have scurrilously remarked that these denomina- 
 tional Boards stand firmly in order that their Secre- 
 taries may hold their jobs. The one overmastering 
 reason why a State Mission Board or a Home Mis- 
 sion Board of Baptists inevitably conserves the doc- 
 trines and principles of the Christian body it serves, 
 is that every day in the year it feels and knows 
 what the real spirit and wish of its supporting body 
 is, and it simply stands for and interprets that 
 spirit. The Boards become the bulwark of the great 
 quiet mass of thinking men against noisy and erratic 
 agitators who propose to remake the Christian world 
 in a day by trumpeting their half-baked idealism 
 through the printed page and in whirlwind platform 
 performances. 
 
 17. Conserving Group Loyalty. After ten years 
 of agitation, the insistent propaganda of religious 
 unionism in this country seems to be losing some of 
 the edge of its enthusiasm. At its strongest it did not 
 seriously endanger the Baptists, and now that the 
 wave is receding there is not a crack or break in 
 our Baptist sea wall. It may be proper to ask, what 
 is there really in group loyalty which is bad? We 
 asked it often of the liberalists, but never got a satis- 
 factory answer. We concluded that they disliked
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 201 
 
 group loyalty because too much of it would spoil 
 their carefully groomed plans for swallowing the 
 various evangelical bodies. Against the State and 
 Home Boards of Baptists these waves of sophistry 
 beat and broke harmless. The liberalists with a true 
 instinct had little to do with these responsible leaders 
 of Baptist denominational action. In scores of fra- 
 ternal orders, in families and kinships, in business or- 
 ganizations, in one's town or State or nation, group 
 loyalty is lauded today perhaps more than ever. 
 Thank God that his people in the evangelical bodies 
 are too wise to despise the tie of sweet understand- 
 ing and fellow-helpfulness which is a fruit of the 
 fellowship each has with the spiritual body of which 
 he is a member. As long as Baptists pray for and 
 liberally uphold their Mission Boards in the work 
 of winning the South, they need have little fear 
 that many even of the weak shall be misled by the 
 siren sophistries of religious liberalism. 
 
 18. A Voice for Baptist Ideals. An invaluable 
 function of the Boards is to gather and express ap- 
 propriate ideals for their supporting body. Sensi- 
 tizing itself at once to the needs and opportunities 
 of Baptists to serve the common weal and to their 
 attitude toward these things, their limitations, and 
 powers, the Mission Board is expected as an honored 
 and trusted servant to invite the heart of its de- 
 nominational body to read aright the signs of the 
 times and to devote itself to supplying each new 
 need which arises. This function of our Mission 
 Boards in the South is of incalculable value in shap- 
 ing the ideals of Baptists concerning a worthy mis-
 
 202 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 sionary objective and in holding a body which is 
 warmly devoted to individualism and democracy in 
 substantial unity, through helping to shape its parts 
 to common purposes and activities. Dr. I. T. Tiche- 
 nor declared that the Home Mission Board between 
 1882 and 1885 actually saved the integrity of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention through this kind of 
 service. (See The Home Mission Task, 28, 29, and 
 Baptist Home Missions). 
 
 19. A Challenge to Baptists. There is not an- 
 other Christian body in America which has been 
 blessed with successes that even approximate those 
 of the mission work of Baptists in the South. And 
 yet there are many other great and honored relig- 
 ious bodies, which have given and are giving most 
 serious attention to saving America. A few of them 
 give somewhat more money to the work than South- 
 ern Baptists do. They are our fellow-helpers in 
 winning America for Christ, and we are thankful 
 for every token of the blessing of God upon their 
 efforts to save men. To Southern Baptists God has 
 given primacy in domestic mission successes. Shall 
 we not thrill with gratitude and gird our hearts to 
 build on these successes a greater edifice of faith and 
 righteousness in Southern life? It is well that Bap- 
 tists should hold to the right of criticising their 
 Mission Boards. It is a right which they should 
 never give up, but one which should not be used 
 except in the spirit of prayer and in the fear of God. 
 In attaining such unmatched results of religious 
 growth and progress as Mission Boards in the South 
 have attained, both at home and across the seas,
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 203 
 
 they have as servants entrusted with exalted tasks 
 the same right to ask the controling spiritual body 
 to rejoice in their faithful and successful steward- 
 ship, as they have to expect criticism and admoni- 
 tion when the earnest and serious-minded people of 
 the churches believe they need it. The author with 
 bold confidence puts the contents of this chapter be- 
 fore our people and challenges their enthusiasm and 
 their hearty approval of an unparalleled work of 
 domestic missions accomplished by their State and 
 Home Boards. He confidently asserts that these 
 agencies merit the heartiest approval of their con- 
 troling bodies for the noble service they have ren- 
 dered. And though he speaks as one who serves, 
 yet he affirms that Baptists in the South cannot with- 
 out sacrificing much of that generous and gracious 
 spirit which makes it a privilege to serve them, re- 
 fuse to their agencies the enthusiastic and whole- 
 hearted appreciation which they have honestly and 
 abundantly won. 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. What is necessary in order that facts and information may 
 be useful? What are the chief materials of the history 
 of our mission work? Are these available to the average 
 reader? What must be done to make them available? 
 
 2. Name some differences between the State Boards and the 
 Home Mission Board. Tell what work the two agencies 
 combined seek to perform. 
 
 3. Describe the simple organization machinery of Baptists for 
 saving the South. Has the Home Board any authority 
 over the State Boards? 
 
 4. Describe how the spirit of co-operation among Baptists has
 
 204 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 been more effective than ecclesiastical authority. Give a 
 concrete evidence of this. 
 
 5. Tell of the mass of churches which give the Boards their 
 existence and usefulness. How many of them are non- 
 participant in missions? How many of them have wor- 
 ship only once a month? Describe to what extent our 
 
 co-operative agencies fail to reach the churches. What is 
 the value of the struggling and backward churches? By 
 what ties are we bound to these tardy churches? Why is 
 it improper to criticise them unkindly? 
 
 6. Give figures to indicate growth of Baptists between 1885 
 and 1915. Give figures to show their growth in missions 
 and value of church property. 
 
 7. Show what part in this growth has been brought about 
 by State and Home Missions. What proportion of the 
 churches have been organized by State Boards in this 
 period, and what proportion aided? Give the record 
 in Mississippi and Texas. 
 
 8. Give the amount raised for Home and State Missions in 
 thirty years. How much has it cost Southern Baptists for 
 each convert baptized through the Mission Boards? 
 
 9. What was characteristic of mission work in the South 
 from 1885 to 1900? Was it a period of growth in giving? 
 Was it a period of development in efficiency? 
 
 10. Describe the effect power machinery and inter-communi- 
 cation have had on recent civilization. What is suggested 
 as an appropriate emblem of our civilization? Show how 
 inventions have brought both good and bad for man and 
 how this is a severe test of character. 
 
 11. Tell of the difficulties of mission work during the last 
 fifteen years. Give facts and figures to show increase of 
 missionary liberality. 
 
 12. Give facts and figures to show marvelous increase in 
 Home and State Mission results during the last fifteen 
 years. 
 
 13. Tell about cultural or intensive missions. Tell about the 
 Enlistment work of the Home Mission Board and State 
 Boards, the Mountain Schools and Foreigner Schools.
 
 ORGANIZATION SERVICE AND SUCCESS 205 
 
 Give the distinction between Enlistment work and church 
 campaigns. 
 
 14. Show the increase in State Missions from 1899 to 1914. 
 Show the increase in Home Missions. Give other figures 
 to indicate the greatness of the growth. 
 
 15. What per cent, of the money expended for mission work 
 by Southern Baptists comes from churches which have 
 been aided at some time by State and Home Missions? 
 Give the figures for different States. How much of the 
 money raised for missions in 1915 came from such 
 churches ? 
 
 16. Show how Home Missions and State Missions conserve 
 the doctrinal principles of Baptists. Show how they 
 are specially fitted for this. 
 
 17. Show how the Mission Boards minister to denominational 
 group loyalty. Is there anything about group loyalty 
 which is bad? Give your opinion as to the reason why 
 religious liberalists cry against group loyalty in religior 
 in the same day in which it is growing in every other 
 circle. 
 
 18. Show how Home and State Boards are of great value as 
 voices for Baptist ideas. What service did the Home Mis- 
 sion Board render between 1882 and 1885? 
 
 19. Has any other Christian body in America been blessed 
 with mission successes at home which approximate those 
 of Southern Baptists? What obligation does our primacy 
 in saving the people put upon Baptists? What challenge 
 may the Boards properly make to their controlling body? 
 What is your own opinion of the success of Home and 
 State Missions?
 
 Democracy presupposes a prevailing morality and intelli- 
 gence; for if these are not in the ascendency, good govern- 
 ment cannot be guaranteed by popular vote. Democracy is 
 of religious origin and puts a premium upon character and 
 general intelligence. The Creator never intended that ignor- 
 ance and immorality should rule intelligence and morality. 
 Therefore, under the divine providence, the doctrine of per- 
 sonal religion was the forerunner of the doctrine of personal 
 rights. The Christian experience is the forebear of the 
 democratic principles. * * * 
 
 The Roman religion is incompatible with democracy, while 
 evangelical religion is its inspiration. We shall revive 
 democracy when we revive religion, and the deepening of 
 religious life of the people means the heightening of the 
 spirit of democracy in the nation. 
 
 There can be no long life for civil liberty without a 
 religion specially tempered to enforce the responsibility of 
 liberty. Liberty runs to license and society dissolves into 
 chaos without an overawing sense of personal responsibility 
 for the proper use of liberty. Religion is the spiritual bond 
 which binds into homogenous nationality a community of 
 separate and independent individuals. James F. Love, D.D., 
 in The Mission of our Nation. 
 
 The last fifty years witnessed the making of a dozen new 
 commonwealths beyond the Mississippi; the next fifty years 
 will witness the remaking of a dozen old commonwealths 
 South of the Mason and Dixon's line. As the epic of the 
 Nineteenth Century was the winning of the West, so the epic 
 of the Twentieth Century will be the development of the 
 South. Clarence H. Poe, in World's Work.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE. 
 
 1. The Past. Though we can live and act only 
 in the present, both the past and the future have 
 claims on us, the past for its lessons and the future 
 with its opportunities and obligations. Cicero said 
 that not to know what has been done in the past is 
 always to be as a child, and Emerson that the sole 
 terms upon which the past can become usefully ours 
 is to subordinate it to the present. Baptists have a 
 saying that they have been so busy making history 
 that they have had no time to write it. It would 
 be truer to say that they have been very influentially 
 busy making history, but so few of them have ap- 
 preciated the importance of studying their history 
 that writers have been discouraged from writing it. 
 This seeming indifference is not to the credit of 
 Baptists. For what is past is not more certain than 
 that what is future will grow out of that which is 
 past. This book has essayed to present in tabloid 
 form outstanding facts in the saving impact of a 
 great Christian body on the life of the country. It 
 is a record of events which are for our instruction 
 and inspiration, a story of trial and suffering, of 
 hope and aspiration, of failure and success, of in- 
 dividualism struggling through an uncharted wilder- 
 ness toward co-operation, of weary years of dire 
 prophecies that organization for service would prove
 
 208 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 to be a Trojan horse, filled with armed and relent- 
 less myrmidons of ecclesiastical tyranny, and an 
 equal number of years in which the event disproved 
 the prediction partly, no doubt, because the in- 
 sistent predictions made organization heedful. Of 
 these and many other like things is our past in the 
 South. Since what we are now is linked to what 
 we were yesterday as one part of a living organism 
 to another, it is desirable that we should know the 
 past. This book will partly fail of its purpose if the 
 reader shall not from it gather a desire to know 
 more of the history of Southern Baptists. 
 
 2. God Led. Every chapter of this book is the 
 story of how God led a spiritual body. The whole 
 book together is a brief setting forth of how God 
 took a people who were weak and despised and so 
 strengthened and increased and instructed them by 
 the lessons of his Book and of the passing years, that 
 they became a mighty power in his hands to in- 
 fluence the life of the Republic and the world. Their 
 preachers, regardless of salary or support, in spite 
 of persecution, derision, and contempt, were flaming 
 evangels of the cross in the pioneer countryside. 
 With every worldly influence against them, they 
 won the people and in Virginia marshalled them so 
 well that they utterly destroyed established relig- 
 ion. Practically without exception they were Revo- 
 lutionary patriots. Cornwallis singled their preach- 
 ers out for special punishment and Washington's 
 armies were thronged with them. God used them to 
 bring civil liberty and soul liberty in America. Their 
 numbers grew. Their churches dotted a thousand
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 209 
 
 landscapes. Feeling the pull of a yearning for fel- 
 lowship with their kind, the churches formed As- 
 sociations. Feeling impelled to co-operation in mis- 
 sion service, the State Conventions were formed. In 
 both instances, there was much fear lest church au- 
 tonomy should suffer. There was the long drawn 
 out fight of missions and anti-missions, of education 
 and anti-education, and the jealousy for autonomy 
 lived and thrived and is living now, keen-eyed and 
 alert. There were twenty years of development and 
 devastation, followed by twenty of partial paralysis 
 and recuperation and fifteen more of the organized 
 mission work gaining strength and wisdom through 
 patient service. Then, after 100 years, came a 
 period of pronounced growth in missionary activi- 
 ties the last fifteen years. Through a century of 
 leading and training, God has so prepared Baptists 
 that, instead of being demoralized by the marvelous 
 changes wrought by the New Civilization, their work 
 has fared forward as never before. 
 
 3. Trembling and Courage. Our past may well 
 make us tremble, while at the same time it should 
 fill every Baptist heart with courage and confidence. 
 With thousands of local churches as our units of 
 supreme authority, with most of them small churches, 
 many of them struggling churches, and with no 
 desire or prospect that our body will ever acknowl- 
 edge any authority between the local church and the 
 God we serve, see what wonderful things God has 
 done for and with us in the growth of denomina- 
 tional consciousness, in co-operative effort in mis- 
 sions and education, and in keeping us in substantial
 
 210 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 doctrinal unity, so that we can walk together be- 
 cause we are agreed. Democrats of the democrats, 
 yet, even more than with other uplift workers, every 
 Baptist victory for progress, excepting the glorious 
 fight for religious liberty, when every Baptist stood 
 together to the end, has been with God's help won 
 by the minority. God has led us; therefore our 
 courage. If our faith is great enough, we shall ex- 
 pect God to lead us now when strange, new, and un- 
 tried enemies of spirituality are blocking the way to 
 progress. God of our fathers, give us faith to trust 
 thee now, for otherwise before the mountainous dif- 
 ficulties of our strange New Day, we cannot but 
 tremble! Without thee our best thoughts shall be 
 as naught against the many new angles through 
 which sin and pleasure seek access to human hearts. 
 4. What of the Future? We can only judge the 
 future by the past and present. What of the future 
 religious life of the South? On each of a half score 
 of problems which condition the present and future 
 many whole books are written. On each of them 
 sermons are preached and more sermons ought to be 
 preached. In the closing paragraphs of this book 
 it will scarcely be possible even to sketch the ques- 
 tions of first magnitude which press upon society for 
 solution. With 36,000,000 population, 10,000,000 of 
 whom are Negroes, 4,000,000 of foreign parentage, 
 and 22,000,000 of white American parentage, the 
 South has 11,000,000 members of evangelical denom- 
 inations and 2,000,000 Catholic population. Of the 
 11,000,000 nearly 5,000,000 are Baptists. Baptists 
 have their greatest opportunity and responsibility
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 211 
 
 in the South to show the world what their principles 
 are worth to mankind. With immense wealth already 
 accumulated, students of economics assure us we are 
 only at the beginning of the piling up of rich stores 
 of material bounty. Inventions and power machinery 
 have made one man equal a dozen in productivity. 
 Is the faith of Southern Christians virile enough to 
 spiritualize such a day as this? 
 
 5. Rural Life and Churches. Nearly eighty per 
 cent of the Southern population is rural. Once rural 
 life reached out only to the borders of the local com- 
 munity, and the quiet life induced meditation and 
 out of meditation came prophets and men with poets' 
 souls. Now country life in its power for large con- 
 tacts has measurably become cosmopolitan, as well 
 as the city. Enlarged contacts have in many places 
 lessened the countryman's sense of responsibility 
 for the local welfare. In many sections the well-to- 
 do farmer has moved to town and tenants are left 
 behind on the old home place. The country church, 
 hitherto the great source of Southern Baptist life 
 in preachers for our pulpits, students for our col- 
 leges, members for our city churches, and men and 
 women for exacting city tasks, as well as for coun- 
 try life itself, is in many places suffering because 
 the withdrawal of resources to help to leaven city 
 life is greater than even its large power to replace. 
 But in the South it is not often decadent country 
 churches that trouble Baptists. It is undeveloped 
 country churches. It is nonsense to talk about de- 
 cadent country churches, when we remember that 
 Southern Baptists have more than 16,000 such
 
 212 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 churches today which have managed somehow to 
 live for many years on the near-starvation 
 diet of once-a-month preaching. The greatest prac- 
 tical opportunity which lies immediately before 
 Southern Baptists today is to inspire and help this 
 great mass of their churches into a fuller life, a 
 more efficient service to their own communities and 
 an enlarged spiritual contact, which will safeguard 
 their members from being demoralized by the 
 worldly appeal of their new cosmopolitanism. State 
 and Home Missions have done an immense service 
 for these churches, and now must do a greater still. 
 
 6. Church Building. With church property valued 
 at $57,000,000, yet an average of one in every seven 
 of our Southern Baptist churches has no house of 
 worship. The need of these struggling bodies cries 
 out for our help. Many of them would become vig- 
 orous power houses for Christ if they were encour- 
 aged by some aid from the denomination at large. 
 State and Home Missions are equally interested in 
 remedying this enormous lack, though most of the 
 States have turned over entirely to the Home Board 
 the work, while all of them are supporting the effort 
 of this Board to raise a $1,000,000 Loan Fund. This 
 is an effort which should appeal mightily to our 
 people. For them to remain unequipped is to leave 
 every moral and spiritual problem of the day with- 
 out that adequacy of saving impact for which 
 Baptists may rightly be held accountable. 
 
 7. The Negro. The Southern white man cannot 
 with his family and white neighbors develop in 
 moral and spiritual worth, if he leaves the black
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 213 
 
 people who live about him to fall prey to disease 
 and sin. The white man cannot go to heaven, while 
 he leaves the black to journey toward the pit. The 
 Negro has made substantial progress in fifty years 
 and the best whites have helped him. It is embarrass- 
 ing to confess it, but there are thousands of whites 
 who have their names on our church rolls, who have 
 not the spirit of Christ toward the Negro. Every 
 Southern pulpit ought to declare the whole counsel of 
 God concerning the duty of the strong to the weak, 
 the advanced to the lowly and backward, the white 
 to the Negro. Our Mission Boards are helping the 
 Negroes, and our mature and responsible leadership 
 has ever been the Negro's friend. The Home Mis- 
 sion Board has during all its career done much to 
 help the Negroes through missionary work. For a 
 number of years past it has had about forty mission- 
 aries among them and for several years through its 
 Evangelistic Department it has conducted a most 
 promising work for saving and training the Negroes 
 and bringing their churches closer to the white 
 churches in sympathy. Southern Baptists have also 
 taken steps to establish a theological seminary for 
 the black brethren. But Baptists have also an 
 obligation so to interpret the will of Christ concern- 
 ing our relations to the blacks, that men and women 
 shall know that they cannot really follow Jesus, 
 if they practice injustice toward Negroes. A church 
 member who advocates or winks at lynchings or 
 condones devices for cheating or in the courts impos- 
 ing upon the least of these, is not fit to be in a church. 
 Southern Christian bodies must do more through
 
 214 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 their missionary agencies to save the Negro, but of 
 greater importance is it that every pulpit shall ring 
 with the truth of Christ concerning our duty to the 
 Negro and every church become a center of moral 
 stamina, demanding that its own members shall keep 
 themselves clean from the sin of oppressing the 
 weak. The Negro cannot in the South be allowed 
 to journey downward without dragging the white 
 man with him. This fundamental fact is of tremen- 
 dous importance and should often be expounded and 
 enforced in twenty thousand Baptist pulpits in the 
 South. 
 
 8. The Immigrant. The immigrant is bringing 
 fearful pressure to bear upon the moral and spiritual 
 resources of America. He has transformed into 
 something other than themselves whole sections of 
 the country. New England, proud of her Puritan 
 descent, proud of her intellect, confident in her 
 political programs, and not very considerate of or 
 respectful toward other forces and sections than her 
 own which have made America great behold New 
 England today with her Puritanism overwhelmed 
 by Romanism and her boasted intellect crowded into 
 ever lessening coteries by the ignorant and the alien, 
 Goths and Huns, working in the vast manufacturing 
 hives of New England. New England gave herself 
 to help make America, but is now apparently allow- 
 ing herself to be swallowed up by an unassimilated 
 horde of foreigners, in order that she may from their 
 labor make gold. Great cities not in New England 
 are crowded with the aliens; millions and millions 
 of them in America. During the present European
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 216 
 
 war Americans are being treated to the humiliating 
 spectacle of the fruits of a patriotism which did not 
 see beyond the dollar mark. Thousands of men from 
 the warring nations, let into this country through 
 our ever-open gates, are plotting for their former 
 countries in utter disregard of the interests of the 
 great Republic to which they have come. God grant 
 that the humiliating spectacle may put our states- 
 men to serious thinking, so many of whom have here- 
 tofore not seemed to see danger so long as the open 
 door policy meant more cheap workers for American 
 industries. In the South are 4,000,000 of these for- 
 eigners. It is the opportunity and obligation of 
 Southern Christian bodies to save and make Ameri- 
 cans of these, while at the same time we use every 
 right influence to get the government to put proper 
 restrictions around immigration, restrictions which 
 shall breathe a spirit of patriotism and moral valua- 
 tion higher than the purpose to coin dollars out of 
 the newcomers. 
 
 9. City and Town. So proud have we been of 
 the new period in the South in which we have more 
 cities than we used to have, that almost every town 
 is in a race with some other town to see how many 
 manufacturing plants it can get, which will bring in 
 new people to count in the next census and to trade 
 in the stores with their earnings. The South is 
 noted for a past of high idealism. But what of the 
 present? What of a Southern day when supposed 
 industrial advantage is often the last word and 
 sometimes seemingly the only thought which directs 
 the course of our growth ! We have within twenty-
 
 216 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 five years past brought into towns and cities to 
 work in factories and mills, hundreds of thousands 
 of people from the farms. Instead of studying the 
 moral and spiritual dangers involved, we have been 
 like children playing with a new toy. One of the 
 first preachments which developed concerning some 
 of our factory towns was that the operatives are 
 better off in their crowded, usually yardless, and 
 barren cottages, attuning their whole lives to the 
 great bell and whirring wheels of the mill, than they 
 were in their modest country home or humble moun- 
 tain cottage. There was enough truth in this to 
 make it more dangerous than an absolute untruth. 
 But it was sadly symptomatic that this defensive 
 dogma came usually from persons financially inter- 
 ested in the new regime and came before any South- 
 ern people had criticised the new system. It is 
 creditable to the management of the cotton mills that 
 not a few of them are now making serious efforts to 
 improve the living condition of operatives. We 
 should give the heartiest recognition to this good 
 work. At the same time the religious bodies should 
 make it perfectly clear that they reserve the right 
 to discuss publicly what should be done for the wel- 
 fare of the people in these cotton mill settlements. 
 Both the political sanity and the spiritual life of the 
 people in several States are involved. In the slums 
 of the larger cities the conditions are worse still. 
 May the Lord enable Southern Christian bodies to 
 take hold of these moral liabilities of society in a 
 way which shall make them assets. Some day so- 
 ciety will outgrow its rather childish glee in pulling
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 217 
 
 people into cities to count and exploit, and will put 
 the manufacturing plants out in the open country 
 where there is room for better living conditions, and 
 will reserve the cities for trade and barter, which is 
 chiefly what they are good for, while there are many 
 things they are bad for, to the point of bitterness, 
 dead souls, and despair. 
 
 10. Social Service. Egoism is selfishness in full 
 flower; Socialism is an over-done exaltation of mass 
 welfare. Somewhere in between lies the truth. 
 Christ has shown where, but men of much learning 
 who have never found Christ, wander in their books 
 and theories in an endless lot of philosophical disser- 
 tations, to land with those who follow them in the 
 ditch. Their diagnosis is frequently good and their 
 proposed treatment is often beautiful, but it lacks 
 dynamic force. Usually it is impatient with the 
 religion of Christ and discredits its institutions and 
 accepted spokesmen. Social science in hundreds of 
 books has set forth its prescriptions for human sal- 
 vation, but still the words of Jesus to the individual 
 soul are the only power that saves. Their philoso- 
 phy is beautiful of brotherly love and justice and 
 public hygiene and of the relation of capital and 
 labor, but when they have with great care and learn- 
 ing set down the last word, poor, sin-cursed hu- 
 manity proceeds in the way of each man for himself 
 and the devil take the hindermost. Men read the 
 Utopian schemes of earnest humanitarian writers 
 and sigh with longing, but straightway return to 
 their social practice of the jungle law of tooth and 
 claw. The inter-relations of men are more involved
 
 218 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 and far-reaching than ever before. "War declared in 
 Germany today causes the widow's son, sole de- 
 pendence for the support of his family, to lose his 
 job in Birmingham, Alabama, next week. There- 
 fore religious leaders must study social science. But 
 with all its varied budget of preachment, it is as 
 helpless as the burnished locomotive just from the 
 shops without steam. It is well if the engineer can 
 understand the relation of every bolt, wheel, rod 
 and pipe, but his prime concern will be to have 
 steam in the boiler. Social science is as useful to the 
 preacher as the scientific knowledge of soils and 
 manures and plant life are to the farmer. It is all 
 helpful, but the great desiderata are the plow and 
 the power that makes it go. Our day dreams much 
 of a social utopia. Our day needs Christ, and with 
 Christ to walk, each man among his fellows, in the 
 spirit of loving helpfulness. Without Christ all our 
 philosophy fails. With the name of Christ, but with- 
 out his Spirit, our churches and church members 
 fail. Social salvation, like individual salvation, 
 is in Jesus Christ and only in him. But, while we 
 must reject the extreme preachments of official 
 Socialism and much which some extreme Christian 
 writers propose, we must also recognize that the 
 larger contacts of the New Civilization demand of us 
 a study and an effort to apply to our times the social 
 teachings of the gospel. 
 
 11. The Individual. There is no individual sal- 
 vation except through faith in Jesus Christ, through 
 whcin the soul has a re-birth. After twenty cen- 
 turies this is still foolishness to the Greeks of cul-
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 219 
 
 ture and learning and a stumbling block to the 
 Hebrews of religious formalism, but it is the power 
 of God unto salvation, both to the individual and 
 to society. The pioneer Baptist preacher of a hun- 
 dred years ago never heard of social service, but 
 he proclaimed a message that transformed the rough 
 and the wicked of the frontier into the pure and the 
 good. It made over society through made-over men. 
 That early-day prophet would rub his eyes in amaze- 
 ment if he could see what changes have taken place 
 in the country he put in the right path a century 
 ago, but the gospel he preached then is the only 
 gospel with dynamic power to make the wheels of 
 social righteousness turn today. If we are to have 
 a great nation, we must have great individual men, 
 who are wise and strong and good. It is well to 
 make it easy to do right and difficult to do wrong. 
 We must remove the stumbling block from before 
 our brothers. But it is better to help one's brother 
 to be so much of a man that he will quit stumbling 
 over everything and whining at every difficulty. It 
 is fashionable in our day for evil doers to blame 
 every institution and everybody before themselves. 
 The churches of Christ are blamed and censured 
 by poor souls who really ought to thank the churches 
 for having pointed the world to the only source of 
 goodness and of spiritual power. Society is blamed 
 too much for the individual's flabby moral nature. 
 Baptists, who have always exalted the individual, 
 have a great opportunity to preach the gospel of 
 individual salvation, which is the only hope of a 
 dynamic adequate for social betterment. We must
 
 220 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 help the weak and needy. The Salvation Army is 
 doing a great and good work, in which the churches 
 should have a larger participancy. But we must 
 make men strong as well as pull the fallen out of 
 the gutter, and we cannot make them strong by 
 encouraging them to unload the blame of their sins 
 on society. 
 
 12. Respect for Authority. Our mission in the 
 South cannot be filled until the gospel we preach 
 helpfully and powerfully relates itself to the or- 
 dained powers that be. We preach individual sal- 
 vation, not individual anarchism. For the frequency 
 of mob law in the South; for the miscarriage of 
 justice in our courts ; for the demagogue in politics, 
 thriving in the mid-week by stirring the baser pas- 
 sions and prejudices of people whom we preached 
 to and baptized on Sunday, the Christian bodies of 
 the South must assume a large measure of respon- 
 sibility, and Baptists more than others, because of 
 their large number. Our Baptist forbears won re- 
 ligious liberty and heroically fought the battles of 
 political liberty in America. These great institutions 
 of human rights are on trial in the Republic. If 
 red-handed anarchism, blind, passion-driven and 
 unreasoning, at *.very new appeal may ruthlessly 
 take into its own treasonable hands the authority of 
 the State, how may we expect our great Republic 
 to endure? Jurymen are members of our churches. 
 These churches have it in their power in the name 
 of Almighty God to command men who name the 
 name of Christ to cease doing evil and to support 
 and pray for the civil powers, which are ordained
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 221 
 
 of God, instead of treating them with contempt. 
 There is great need for a new emphasis on the 
 majesty of law and order and the sacredness of 
 human life. Not only ar* Civilization and religion 
 disgraced by the unreasoning mob, but also by dema- 
 goguey and weaklings in office, who prostitute the 
 authority vested in them by stirring up class hatred, 
 by wholesale pardon of criminals, delays in judicial 
 proceedings, and in other ways. 
 
 13. Peculiar Responsibility of Baptists. It would 
 be a serious reflection on so great a body as the 
 Baptists if they did not firmly, uncompromisingly 
 and unanimously set their faces against every prac- 
 tice which opposes the dignity and sanctity of the 
 civil authority. Baptists more than any other Chris- 
 tian body emphasize the individual. Therefore we 
 have a peculiar obligation to show to the world that 
 the rights of the individual may be cultivated, while 
 at the same time he is brought under subjection to 
 right authority. If the mob and the spirit of anarchy 
 rear their blear-eyed and impudent heads where 
 Baptists are strong, is it not a call to our churches 
 to humble themselves before God and cry mightily 
 unto him that he may show us wherein we have been 
 at fault in our instruction of the people? If, em- 
 phasing individual rights, we fail to teach men the 
 large responsibilities which of necessity grow out 
 of the possession of those rights, may we not justly 
 be held accountable for the failure, both by God and 
 by society? The Baptist doctrine of democracy car- 
 ries with it a fearful responsibility to so educate the 
 people in the spirit and practice of real Christianity
 
 222 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 that they may not stumble over a misunderstood 
 dogma of liberty into the pit of bloody anarchism. 
 
 14. Roman Catholicism. At the antipodes to the 
 democracy of Baptists and the premium which they 
 put upon the character and intelligence of the in- 
 dividual is Roman Catholicism, with its Pope and 
 hierarchy, claiming supreme authority over souls and 
 over civil governments and powers. The hierarchy 
 is today making a superlative effort to get America 
 under its control. While it boasts numbers and 
 powers which it does not possess, yet it is a real and 
 great menace to the continued dominance of the 
 evangelical faith and to the civic ideals of this great 
 Eepublic. Seeing in the public schools a mighty 
 power to help our democratic institutions, the hier- 
 archy insolently inveighs against them, while at the 
 same time it seeks to fill them with Romanist teach- 
 ers. The presence and active scheming of this great 
 and subtle religio-political organization in America 
 is a challenge to every evangelical body and its mis- 
 sionary and educational agencies to teach the peo- 
 ple the facts about the octopus. The religious news- 
 papers should be encouraged to keep open to the 
 un-American doings of Romanists, in order that the 
 people may be informed. The daily secular paper for 
 the most part will not touch the subject, unless it 
 be to please the Romanists. At the same time, 
 Mission Board workers should use every opportunity 
 to win the misguided adherents of the Catholic faith. 
 We shall make a great blunder if we look upon them 
 as beyond the reach of the gospel of Christ. Home 
 and State missionaries are winning them. In a New
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 223 
 
 Orleans campaign of the Home Board Evangelistic 
 Department fifteen Romanists were won for baptism 
 in a single meeting at a mission station. There is 
 need that efforts of this kind be greatly enlarged. 
 To win Catholics means that we must increase and 
 intensify our mission work in the cities, for Roman- 
 ism is almost exclusively a city problem in the South. 
 15. Materialism. With pathetic and wearisome 
 repetition history teaches that commercial prosperity 
 has often carried in it the germs of national disinte- 
 gration, that when wealth piled up men decayed. 
 The South today has marvelous wealth and pros- 
 perity. Have Southern men and women strength 
 enough to prosper without retrograding in moral 
 stamina and character? We have had a past replete 
 with greatness and with high idealism. How riches 
 have come, and yet greater riches lie just ahead. In 
 like conditions many nations have decayed at heart, 
 and God has cast them out, because their works were 
 evil. How will it be in the South? Wealth and the 
 pre-occupation and pleasure and gratification and 
 soft comforts which money buys, are now testing 
 Southern character, of what it is made. What shall 
 it profit the South if it has lands and railroads and 
 cities and fields and mines and stocks and bonds, if 
 the rich grind the poor, if the workers go sullen to 
 their tasks, and their wives are driven to despair? 
 What is wealth worth, if its seductions vitiate the 
 character and lives of our children? There is a 
 wealth which is poverty. Such will be the wealth 
 of the South, if men are not big enough and good 
 enough to consecrate their wealth to God and to
 
 224 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 the work of human betterment. True we are mak- 
 ing much progress in mission work. Still what we 
 give is as a pittance compared with what we ought. 
 We gave for all definite mission work last year 
 five cents per month per member! Thousands of 
 our church members spend more on maintaining an 
 automobile for six months than they give to sup- 
 port the gospel of Christ in their lives. The 
 value of the jewels and hats of the women in some 
 larger churches in the cities would more than equal 
 all they give to God for twenty years. 
 
 16. A Time for Prayer and Committal. Is the 
 fabric of the Southern Christian character so shot 
 through with spiritual purpose that it can match 
 the powers of worldliness and bring them into cap- 
 tivity? Has the fat-heartedness of material plenty 
 robbed us of high thoughts, noble dreams, and holy 
 purposes for Christ? Southern Baptists need to 
 dedicate themselves afresh to God and to cry might- 
 ily unto him. The demons of sin are more subtly 
 entrenched in the institutions of society today than 
 ever before. They are bolder and better organized. 
 They have all the powers of invention, of culture, of 
 learning, and of the printing press, to help them 
 deceive themselves and lead others to destruction. 
 No human wisdom, no philosophy of man, and not 
 even any preaching of truth, will drive out these 
 devils, except as we by prayer and worship bring 
 down the Spirit of the Most High God. Always 
 learning and never coming to wisdom, the sin de- 
 ceived world looks everywhere else for aid. But 
 only through Christ is there aid and only through
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 225 
 
 entire dependence upon and surrender to him can we 
 command that aid. 
 
 17. Preach the Truth of the Word. With print- 
 ing presses daily turning out pages by the millions, 
 our day seems to have more than matched the in- 
 crease in quantity by the falling off in quality. The 
 more prominent secular press is open to the charge 
 of being run in the interest of the advertiser rather 
 than the public welfare. In fiction the ephemeral 
 and superficial thrive and even the libidinous boldly 
 flaunts itself to corrupt the minds of our youth. 
 There is also much reading of a .better quality, which 
 is yet not of the best. The reading of the Bible is 
 much neglected and a certain section of so-called re- 
 ligious teachers are coming to preach little of the doc- 
 trines of the word of God, except the Sermon on 
 the Mount. We wish we could believe that this con- 
 tinual agitation has not had an effect on some of 
 our Baptist pulpits, but we fear it has. There is 
 need for more doctrinal preaching than ever. Our 
 Sunday School Board is doing a great work of in- 
 doctrination through its lessons and its special work- 
 ers. Our Mission Boards are great conservators of 
 sound doctrines, and yet the fact that in them Bap- 
 tists have institutionalized a propaganda for the 
 single doctrine of missions, while they have not to 
 an equal extent institutionalized a propaganda for 
 their other doctrines, carries in it a certain danger 
 of lack of balance in emphasis. Paul was the great- 
 est missionary and he was also the greatest preacher 
 of doctrines. Some of them Peter declared hard to 
 understand, but they were a part of the gospel of
 
 226 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 the most powerful missionary who ever sought to 
 reach with salvation the sin-opiated hearts of men. 
 In a day when the learned sophistries of men have 
 explained away every cardinal truth of the Bible, the 
 Baptist message must ring as clear as a bell on 
 Christ as Saviour, on the hopelessly lost condition 
 of man, on believer's baptism, on the competency 
 of the soul with God, and on other great doctrines 
 of the word. 
 
 18. Mightily Support Missions. Never was there 
 a day in which the success of Baptists so largely 
 depended upon strengthening in the work of State 
 and Home Mission Boards. The conditions out- 
 lined above are only a few outstanding char- 
 acteristics of the tangled skein of life as it 
 is lived in the New Civilization. Diagnosis is 
 useful, but we have compressed into the last few 
 pages only a glimpse of a few of the problems which, 
 unsolved, will bring disease to the body social and 
 politic. We shall not even try to catalogue many 
 other similar distinguishing traits of our New Day. 
 Many as are the uncharted whirlpools and dangerous 
 surfs in the sea of common human experience today, 
 the great Captain of our salvation has never lost a 
 soul who sailed with him. Human nature of the 
 twentieth century has new and unaccustomed be- 
 setznents to negotiate, but human nature and human 
 need are the same and the power of God is not short- 
 ened. He who, after he had broken the bonds of 
 death, met his disciples on the mountain in Galilee, 
 told them: "All power is given unto me in heaven
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 227 
 
 and in earth." Then he gave them the Great Com- 
 mission, in obeying which from that day until now 
 his followers have been able to overcome sin and 
 drive out the powers of darkness. In the face of 
 human sin and weakness and ignorance and preju- 
 dice and passion, in despite of the prince of the power 
 of the air, who has in every generation injected into 
 the thoughts of men and nations the most subtle 
 and terrible suggestions of evil, this gospel of salva- 
 tion has triumphantly made its way in the world. 
 We have a difficult New Day, but we need have no 
 fear, if we will humble ourselves before our Lord 
 Jesus and be loyal and faithful. "Lo, I am with you 
 always, even to the end of the world," is his prom- 
 to those who faithfully obey him. That promise has 
 been abundantly fulfilled. If the problems of so- 
 ciety pile mountain high, we shall still be world- 
 conquerers in Christ, just so long as we claim his 
 promise and obey his commands. 
 
 18. Our Need and Our Prayer. Our intense life 
 demands alertness, but that is the least it demands 
 of the Lord 's people. Its over-topping demand is for 
 a new and full committal of ourselves and of all 
 which is ours to him for service. The enemy is better 
 organized than ever. Wherever the opportunity offers 
 he has entrenched himself. But we follow a Com- 
 mander who never lost a battle when his followers 
 were loyal, and who has a thousand times turned 
 seeming defeat into victory. Largely through State 
 and Home Mission Baptists in the South have gath- 
 ered in the great company of recruits with which our 
 spiritual body now faces the powers of sin and dark-
 
 228 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 ness. With even greater need for effective recruit- 
 ing today, we confront the collossal task of training 
 those who are already in camp to fight the new and 
 strange devices with which the enemy seeks to de- 
 stroy the citadel of Man Soul. God of mercy and 
 of grace, God of our fathers, open thou the eyes of 
 this people that they may see. Make attentive their 
 hearts that they may understand. Give strength and 
 direction to our frail human hands, we humbly be- 
 seech thee, that we may perform the doing of thy 
 will. Holy Father, keep this goodly land for thy 
 glory. Preserve here a people who shall honor and 
 serve thee. Drive out every unclean thing and 
 all that which maketh a lie. May thy Spirit come 
 in mighty power upon this Southern Baptist 
 body, that it may honor God and serve him 
 with its whole heart and follow him in all his ap- 
 pointed ways. Use us, gracious Father, that we may 
 do valiant exploits, holding this fair Southland 
 for thee. Make us strong and wise according to the 
 needs of our own times. Graciously bless the Mission 
 Boards which thy people are using to these ends. 
 Make them wise and true and devoted and give them 
 to merit thy approval and that of thy people whose 
 they are. Make, we pray thee, the South a spiritual 
 dynamic to bless the nation, and make the nation a 
 blessing to all nations. And may thy Kingdom come 
 and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven j 
 as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen! 
 
 "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: 
 
 He hath loos'd the fateful lightning of His terrible, swift sword*
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 229 
 
 He is trampling out the vintage, where the grapes of wrath are 
 stored, 
 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; 
 Oh, be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet! 
 Our God is marching on." 
 
 TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1. Tell what Cicero and Emerson said about the past. Tell 
 why authors have been discouraged from writing the his- 
 tory of Southern Baptists. Give a glimpse of the scope 
 of this book. 
 
 2. Recount evidence that God has been leading Southern 
 Baptists. Recount the different periods covered by the 
 book. 
 
 3. Show how record of Baptist missions in the South offers 
 ground for encouragement and anxiety. Have the Baptist 
 victories been won by the majority or minority? 
 
 4. Give population and Baptist membership in the South. 
 What bearing has our wealth on the present religious 
 outlook ? 
 
 5. Describe the effect of inter-communication and city build- 
 ing on rural population. Tell how city strength is fur- 
 nished by country churches. Is our problem one of decadent 
 or undeveloped country churches? Describe our present 
 Baptist opportunity in the country. 
 
 6. Tell of the need of a Building Loan Fund. 
 
 7. Tell of the Southern white man's obligation to the Negro. 
 Tell of the good work by the Home Mission Board for 
 the Negro. Tell of the duty of Christian bodies to help 
 the Negro. 
 
 8. Describe what the immigrant has done for New England. 
 Describe the result of unassimilated immigration, as shown 
 in America during the European War. Tell of the number 
 and needs of immigrants in the South.
 
 230 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 9. Tell of present city growth in the South. Ought we to 
 be proud of the increase in numbers in cities? Tell of 
 the factory towns and living conditions. Tell of efforts 
 of the management of cotton mills for improved condi- 
 tions. Have religious bodies the right to speak out con- 
 cerning the welfare of factory people? Would it not be 
 better for the manufacturing to be done in open country 
 places rather than in congested cities? 
 
 10. Show how many Socialism writers are strong on diagnosis 
 but weak in dynamic force. What is needed in order 
 that the Utopian schemes of Socialism may be realized. 
 Tell of the inter-dependence of man in the present social 
 scheme. What is the great need of today? 
 
 11. What is the method of Christ for saving society? Is the 
 salvation of the individual as necessary today as in the 
 pioneer days? Tell of the present disposition to blame 
 the fault of individuals on society. Tell of the necessity 
 of helping the week and needy. 
 
 12. Describe the necessity of a gospel which relates itself 
 helpfully to civil authority. Tell of the responsibility of 
 Christian bodies for lawlessness. Tell why our pulpits 
 ought to ring with sermons against the mob and the 
 demagogue. 
 
 13. Tell why Baptists have a special responsibility to exorcise 
 the spirit of anarchism in society. Does the Baptist doc- 
 trine of democracy carry with it great responsibility to 
 Christianize the people? 
 
 14. Show how Roman Catholicism is at the antipodes from 
 Baptists. Tell of the Romanist effort to control America 
 and their inconsistent attitude toward the public schools. 
 Ought our religious newspapers to educate the people 
 about the un-American work of Romanism? Tell of the 
 duty of Mission Boards and churches. 
 
 15. Describe the spiritual danger which comes from material 
 wealth in the South today. Has great wealth often been 
 associated with national decay? Is our progress in mis- 
 sions commensurate with the ability of our people and 
 with the great needs?
 
 THE PAST AND FUTURE 231 
 
 16. Show how Baptists need to dedicate themselves afresh 
 to God. Show how the forces of evil are bolder and 
 harder to conquer now. 
 
 17. Tell of the dangers of an irresponsible press. Tell of the 
 necessity of more doctrinal preaching. Tell of Paul as 
 an example of doctrine and missions. 
 
 18. Tell the need for a great mission program now. Show 
 how our Lord Jesus is sufficient for the needs of our day. 
 
 19. What committal of God's people is necessary in order to 
 win and hold the forces of our country for Jesus? Show 
 the centrality of the Mission Boards as agencies through 
 which Baptists may project their saving impact. Ought 
 Baptists by prayer consciously to dedicate themselves to 
 these great tasks?
 
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS. 
 
 It is earnestly recommended that only one chapter be used 
 for a lesson, but the chapters have been so arranged that each 
 couple of them, one and two, three and four, etc., treat subjects 
 which are of very close kin. Therefore it will be found 
 practicable, when only six periods can be given to the book, to 
 take two chapters for each lesson. 
 
 If the teacher wishes variety, he may have one or two mem- 
 bers of the class to investigate some special subject bearing 
 on each chapter and let them present their findings in a five- 
 to seven-minute paper at the class meeting. It will be well in 
 assigning the lesson for the next period to call attention to 
 such points as may help to center the students' minds on the 
 central truth to be brought out. 
 
 It may be suggested to teachers who are taking up such 
 work for the first time, that the first meeting may be profitably 
 used in organizing the class, giving the general scope of the 
 work to be done, and assigning the first lesson. But, as many 
 will be pressed for time, it is also possible for the teacher to 
 present the first lesson at that meeting in the form of a lecture, 
 with the understanding that class recitations will be expected 
 at succeeding meetings. It is advised that not less than an 
 hour be given to actual class work at each meeting. 
 
 It would give to the work of the class a fitting prominence 
 and dignity if at the close of the course of study the pastor 
 should be asked to preach a special sermon on Baptist Growth 
 in and Service to the South, under the auspices of the Mission 
 Study Class. It might be even more fitting to secure the State 
 Secretary to render this service. Such a service could not 
 but thrill the whole church with something of the spirit and 
 purpose which the class will have gathered from its study, 
 and contribute to a wholesome denominational spirit 
 
 These lessons would be eminently adapted for lecture use 
 by the pastor in the mid-week prayer meeting service, using a 
 lesson each week or every alternate week.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Benedict History of the Baptists. 
 
 Blakely American State Papers. 
 
 Burrows, Lansing How Baptists Work Together. 
 
 Campbell, J. H. Georgia Baptists. 
 
 Cathcart Baptist Encyclopedia. 
 
 Cobb, H. Meaning of Christian Unity. 
 
 Cocke, Charles L. Evangelism by Virginia Baptists. 
 
 Cook, H. T. Biography of Richard Furman. 
 
 Cook, H. T. Education in South Carolina Under Baptist 
 Auspices. 
 
 Dow, Lorenzo Works of 
 
 Frost, J. M. Sunday School Board History and Work. 
 
 Fuller History of Texas Baptists. 
 
 Furman, Wood Charleston Association. 
 
 Garrett, T. H. History of Saluda Association. 
 
 Hawks, F. L. Ecclesiastical History of the United States. 
 
 Heck, Fannie E. S. In Royal Service. 
 
 Hillyer Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists. 
 
 Hunt, Gaillard Life in America One Hundred Years Ago. 
 
 Index Publishing Company History of Georgia Baptists. 
 
 James, C. F. Struggle for Religious Liberty in America. 
 
 James, Powhatan Reasons for Christian Education. 
 
 Johnson, Livingston Christian Statesmanship. 
 
 Johnson, Livingston History of North Carolina Baptist State 
 Convention. 
 
 Johnson, Thomas Carey Virginia Presbyterianism and Re- 
 ligious Liberty. 
 
 Kentucky Baptists Jubilee Volume of 
 
 Lawrence, J. B. A State Mission Manual. 
 
 Leavell, Z. T. Baptist Annals. 
 
 Leavell and Bailey History of Mississippi Baptists. 
 
 Love, James F. The Mission of Our Nation. 
 
 Masters Baptist Home Missions. 
 
 Masters The Home Mission Task.
 
 234 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Mercer, Jesse Memoirs of 
 
 Morrell, Z. N. Fruits and Flowers, or Forty-Six Years in 
 
 Texas. 
 
 Morris, S. L. At Our Doors. 
 
 Padelford, Frank W. Commonwealths of the Kingdom. 
 Paxton History of the Baptists of Louisiana. 
 Purefoy, George W. History of Sandy Creek Association. 
 Riley, B. F. Baptists in the Southern States East of the 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Riley, B. F. History of Alabama Baptists. 
 Riley, B. F. History of Texas Baptists. 
 Semple History of Rise and Progress of Virginia Baptists 
 
 (Beale's revised edition). 
 Spencer, J. H. History of Kentucky Baptists. 
 Southern Pub. Society The South in the Building of the Nation 
 
 (ten large volumes). 
 Thayer, J. H. Thesis on Southern Baptists in Sunday-School 
 
 Work. 
 Tupper, H. A. History of First Baptist Church of Charleston, 
 
 S. C. 
 
 Vail, A. L. Morning Hour of American Baptist Missions. 
 Vail, A. L. Baptists Mobilized for Missions. 
 
 These books and others have been consulted by the author 
 and found helpful. As the average student and teacher cannot 
 well get hold of all these, the author takes the liberty of indicat- 
 ing here a few of the books which he thinks every student and 
 especially every teacher should try to get By all means he 
 should have Riley's History of Baptists in the South, East of 
 the Mississippi, and C. F. James's Struggle for Religious 
 Liberty in Virginia. Many other volumes are valuable, but 
 these will be especially needed for reference and further 
 study. Dr. Riley's book may be had from any Baptist book 
 store. The book by James may be had from the Baptist Book 
 Concern, Louisville, Ky.
 
 REFERENCE BOOKS ON VARIOUS CHAPTERS. 
 
 For the convenience of teachers one or more reference books 
 are here suggested for use in the study of each chapter. Riley's 
 History of Southern Baptists will be helpful on all chapters 
 up to X. 
 
 I. Life in America One Hundred Years Ago. 
 
 Semple's History of Virginia Baptists. 
 
 II. Fruits and Flowers, or Forty-Six Years in Texas. 
 
 Cook's Biography of Richard Furman, or any other 
 volume giving early history of Baptists in Associations 
 or States. 
 
 III. Semple's History of Virginia Baptists. 
 
 James's Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia. 
 
 IV. Same as for III and Articles on Fight for Religious 
 
 Liberty in Vol. X of the South in the Building of the 
 Nation. May be found in many public and private 
 libraries. 
 
 V. Riley's History of Alabama Baptists. 
 
 Spencer's History of Kentucky Baptists. 
 Johnson's History of North Carolina Baptists. 
 Furman's Charleston Association. 
 Cook's Baptist Education in South Carolina. 
 
 VI. Same as for V. 
 
 Jubilee Volume, Kentucky Baptists. 
 
 VII. Miss Heck's In Royal Service. 
 Frost's Sunday School Board History. 
 
 VIII. Any State Baptist History. 
 Baptist Home Missions, Chap. II. 
 
 IX. The South in the Building of the Nation, Ante-bellum 
 
 period. 
 
 Home Mission Task, Chap. I, and Baptist Home Missions. 
 
 X. The South in the Building of the Nation. 
 
 Johnson's History of North Carolina Baptists. 
 Home Mission Task, and Baptist Home Missions. 
 
 XI. The work in this chapter is from unpublished records. 
 
 XII. Books on Immigrants, Country Church, Mountaineers, 
 Negroes, or Social Service will help. So will any work 
 on General Home Missions.
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 ON THE 
 ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. 
 
 Dr. Richard Furman was elected the first President of the 
 Triennial Convention in 1814 and was re-elected in 1817. 
 On the latter occasion he addressed the body on Christian 
 education, to which he had given his best thought and energy 
 for twenty-six years. Of that address a current number of The 
 Latter Day Luminary said: "The President having, with the 
 approbation of the Convention, placed before the body in a 
 speech of considerable length and great interest, the very 
 serious and religious importance of a well-informed ministry, 
 the Convention resolved unanimously that the communication 
 made by the Rev. Dr. Furman, relative to the education of 
 pious young men who appear to be called of God to the 
 work of the ministry, be referred and specially recommended 
 to the Board." 
 
 Dr. H. T. Cook, Professor of Greek in Furman University, 
 Greenville, South Carolina, to whom Baptists are indebted for 
 bringing to light new and important facts bearing upon this 
 question, quotes as follows, the Missionary Magazine of July, 
 1818, in his book, Education in South Carolina Under Baptist 
 Auspices, concerning the action of the Convention Board: 
 "The subject of education occupied a large share of the 
 attention of the Board at its annual meeting. The committee 
 appointed by the Board to consider the plan of education 
 submitted by the venerable President, Doctor Furman, reported 
 that, owing to the importance of the subject and the necessity 
 of waiting the openings of Providence and the liberality of 
 the brethren in various parts of the Union, they have not been 
 able to return their ideas so fully or so soon as they could 
 have wished. They approve in the main, highly, of the plan 
 the President proposed, and are of the opinion that it will 
 ultimately, in substance be found in successful operation."
 
 APPENDIX 237 
 
 Judge Matthias B. Tallmadge, of New York, a member of 
 the Board and a friend of Doctor Furman, wrote him a letter 
 on May 30, 1817, referring to the recent Convention meeting 
 and concluding: "The entering wedge for the promotion of 
 education has been so far driven that it may be hoped another 
 Convention will be able to give effective organization and 
 efficacy to your excellent views on this subject." (See 
 Biography of Richard Furman by H. T. Cook, page 103.) 
 
 In 1841 Dr. James B. Taylor published a Memoir of Luther 
 Rice, in which it was claimed that Rice had done more than 
 any other man to change the attitude of Baptists toward 
 education. Other writers have generally followed Taylor's 
 Memoirs, including Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia, which is 
 considered standard. 
 
 "This," writes Doctor Cook in Biography of Richard Fur- 
 man, page 104, "passed for reliable information on the subject, 
 much of which has no objective reality. It is at variance with 
 the views of men who were well acquainted with the facts." 
 
 One of these men, quoted by Professor Cook, was Dr. S. S. 
 Cutting, who in a speech at Philadelphia, in 1878, on "The 
 Origin of Our Denominational Work in Education," said: "Of 
 this character likewise was the far greater service rendered by 
 the Charleston Baptist Education Fund, instituted in 1791, 
 under the presidency of Richard Furman, combining the rep- 
 resentatives of a considerable number of churches, and acting 
 with great liberality and efficiency down to a period when, a 
 quarter of a century later, its distinguished leader became 
 the leader of a far greater movement * * * when at the first 
 triennial meeting of the Baptist General Convention held in this 
 city, the President, Dr. Richard Furman, brought forward the 
 Plan of Education, as the result of which the sphere of the 
 Convention was made to include educational organizations. 
 The Convention now entered upon its educational work. The 
 trumpet tones of Luther Rice's voice, as on his wonderful 
 journeys he traversed the country from New England to the 
 Gulf, preaching the crusade of missions, proclaimed at the 
 same time the crusade of education." 
 
 In a subsequent letter, Doctor Furman himself in effect said
 
 238 BAPTIST MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH 
 
 that the plan which he had for long worked in South Carolina 
 was the plan which he presented in his Convention address 
 in 1817 and which the Convention adopted. He writes (Biog- 
 raphy of Richard Furman, page 106) : "The plan put before the 
 Convention by the President at its last meeting, has been in 
 operation among the churches with which this committee are 
 immediately connected for nearly thirty years and has been 
 proved by time and experience to be well adapted." 
 
 Dr. James C. Furman, son of Richard Furman, and for 
 long President of Furman University, in History of the First 
 Church of Charleston, says: "It is not generally known that 
 the widespread interest in denominational education which 
 shows itself now among our brethren of the North had a 
 Southern origin. But it is so nevertheless. There was no 
 Newton, no Rochester, no Hamilton in 1814 when the Mission- 
 ary Convention was held in Philadelphia. In 1817 the Presi- 
 dent was asked to address the assembled delegates on a subject 
 which he held to be of vital importance. From a heart sur- 
 charged with concern on the subject of education, especially 
 that of the rising ministry, he made an address the effect of 
 which was powerful and instantaneous. From that day a great 
 idea was born in the Baptist public mind. His own views 
 contemplated a central institution at Washington, with institu- 
 tions preparatory to be founded .in separate States. Waterville 
 and Hamilton were probably the direct outgrowth of the 
 original plan. So were Furman and Mercer. Indeed, the 
 whole later denominational movement in favor of education, 
 originated from the impulse." 
 
 Luther Rice, canvassing for missions with great energy and 
 ability, had also seen the necessity of more interest in Baptist 
 education and had agitated in that behalf, but the Baptist 
 movement was set on foot at Philadelphia in 1817 by the 
 eloquent speech of the distinguished President of the Con- 
 vention, who for nearly thirty years had been working and 
 planning in this same interest with concern for it Luther 
 Rice became the agent of the Convention for this cause in 
 1817, as well as for missions, and his infectious spirit and 
 eloquent addresses did much to arouse the people. On Rice's 
 account, as well as on account of truth and the memory of
 
 APPENDIX 239 
 
 Richard Furman, the great Southerner, it is unfortunate a 
 fuller knowledge of the facts has not been had until they 
 were unearthed by Doctor Cook. For further study of the 
 subject see Biography of Richard Furman and Education in 
 South Carolina under Baptist Auspices, 75c. each. May be had 
 from the author, Dr. H. T. Cook, Furman University, Green- 
 ville, S. C.
 
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